From Army Regulations to Novels: A Writer's Journey

From Army Regulations to Novels A Writer’s Journey

A Writer’s Journey

Don Helin

Don Helin is the author of six thrillers that draw from his military experience. He writes for TheBurg, a community magazine based in Harrisburg. Don Helin is the multi award-winning author of Devil’s Den, Secret Assault (Indie Book Award), Angel’s Revenge, Long Walk Home, Roof of the World (Indie Book Award), and Missing (Indie Book Award). Don Helin is a Zoom Into Books Author.

From Army Regulations to Novels

In less time than it takes to run a hundred-yard dash, Don Helin’s life is shattered with the stunning news of an illness—triggering numbness, shock, confusion, and despair.

In a fast-paced memoir that reads more like one of his thriller novels, Helin leads us through his journey while weaving into the narrative of his military life the chaos of Vietnam, Watergate, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and political intrigue in the Pentagon.

Finding himself on the threshold of the five steps of grief, he considers the different roads he might have traveled. He enters a National Cancer Institute study protocol designed for Vietnam veterans with health issues caused by Agent Orange. Will the results of this study help the many veterans who suffer from Agent Orange-inflicted diseases?

With the help of his wife and others and his own strength of human spirit, Helin considers changing priorities in his life, which might lead to a different conclusion.

Is it too late to make changes, or must he simply play out the hand he’s been dealt?

From Army Regulations to Novels

Don Helin

From Army Regulations to Novels A Writer’s Journey

Don Helin

Headline Books, Inc. Terra Alta, WV

From Army Regulations to Novels A Writer’s Journey

by Don Helin copyright ©2022 Don Helin All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any other form or for any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage system, without written permission from Headline Books, Inc. To order additional copies of this book or for book publishing information, or to contact the author: Headline Books, Inc. P.O. Box 52 Terra Alta, WV 26764 www.HeadlineBooks.com Tel: 304-789-3001 Email: mybook@headlinebooks.com ISBN 13: 9781951556754

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021947470

P R I N T E D I N T H E U N I T E D S TAT E S O F A M E R I C A

To those who never came home.

Part I

1 National Cancer Institute, June 23, 1983, 1:00 p.m.

The June heat and humidity in Washington D. C. felt oppressive as Elaine and I walked across the parking lot at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and into a side door to reach the elevators.

The NCI was part of the National Institutes of Health and located in Bethesda, Maryland on a campus-like environment of seventy-five buildings spread out over 300 acres, so definitely a challenge to find the NCI for the first time.

The doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center had referred me to the NCI for a consultation. It had been a huge surprise and punch in the gut when the doctors at Walter Reed diagnosed me with non-Hodgkins lymphoma a month earlier.

My heart beat wildly as I pushed the button to take the two of us up to my appointment. Things had been going well. Our blended family, my two daughters, one son, and Elaine’s daughter were all getting along with only a few blips, and I was on the promotion list to full colonel at the Pentagon. All of a sudden, our joy changed with the diagnosis. What did it mean?

We got off the elevator and walked along the hallway to the oncology office, our heels clicking on the tiles. I pushed open the door, looked around, then walked up to the dark-haired woman sitting behind the desk.

“My name is Colonel Helin. I have an appointment with Doctor Averbuch for one o’clock.”

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She ran her fingers down the page to check the book. “Yes, here you are, Colonel. Please take a seat. Doctor Averbuch will be with you in a minute.”

I wanted to tell her I didn’t have a minute more to wait. I’d been waiting for a week for the results of my biopsy. Hadn’t slept.

Been dealing with nightmares. But it wasn’t her fault, so Elaine and I took our seats as she asked.

I had arrived in Washington D.C. from the Army War College a little over two years before for an assignment in the Pentagon.

While at the war college, I had met Elaine at a Parents Without Partners dance.

We dated for almost eight months while I finished my tour at the war college, then kept long-range dating for another seven months after I moved to the pentagon. We married in January 1982. Elaine and her daughter, Jessica, joined me in Washington about a year and one-half ago.

A short nurse with red hair came over and shook me out of my reverie. “Colonel Helin? Please come with me.”

I stood and wondered if I might fall over from nerves. Elaine held on to my left arm. I felt like an old man and here I was, only forty-two at the peak of life. Now this.

We followed her into an office with a desk, an exam table, some routine medical equipment, and a couple of chairs. She took my vital signs, then handed me a white gown. “Please take a seat on the bench and remove your clothes except for underwear.

Doctor Averbach will be here in a moment.” She turned and left.

I hung up my clothes, slipped on the gown, and hopped onto the table. Elaine gave me a thumbs up. “Hang in there. Hopefully, we’ll get some good news.”

Averbach knocked and when I called yes, walked into the room. Tall and sandy-haired, he moved with quick, choppy motions.

He looked down at my leg. “As understand it, Colonel, the place they took the biopsy is on your upper thigh and under your arm.”

I nodded and pulled up the gown to show him.

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“The biopsy sites look good. No infection.” He straightened and walked over to the desk, then took a seat.

I couldn’t wait for him to bumble around. “What did the biopsy show?”

He opened my file and glanced down for a moment. Then he looked directly at me. “We biopsied two lymph nodes in your leg and one under your arm. I’m sorry to say they all showed positive for the lymphoma.”

I wanted to put my head in my hands. I couldn’t believe it. I straightened. “Are you absolutely sure?”

The doctor stared at me for a moment, then nodded slowly.

I had trouble talking, so Elaine asked, “What does this mean?”

“It’s not a good sign. It means the cancer has spread into the lymph system. Unfortunately, this places Colonel Helin in stage four.”

“Doctor,” I said, trying to contain my voice, “tell me what stage four means.”

Averbach took a deep breath. “Because the cancer has spread, it will be harder for us to stop it.”

Elaine swallowed hard. “Is there a threat to life?”

The doctor nodded.

“What?” I almost cried out. “Tell me exactly what this means to me. Do I have to get my affairs in order?”

The doctor took a deep breath. “Okay. It means that on average, patients in stage four have a life span of approximately — he paused — six and one-half years.”

Elaine and I looked at each other. Neither of us able to speak.

I was only forty-two. He was telling me I might not make it to fifty.

The doctor raised his hand to catch our attention. “Here at the Institute we have begun a study protocol for patients with your diagnosis and who served in Vietnam and been exposed to Agent Orange.”

“That fits me,” I said.

“If you agree, we will randomize you into one of two test groups, each group will receive a different treatment. Our hope is we can find the best way to treat your symptoms.”

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Elaine and I looked at each other again, neither of us sure what to say next.

The doctor leaned forward, holding my file in his hands. “I know this must be an awful shock. I suggest you go home and think about what I’ve said. I’ll make an appointment with our administrative group who will help randomize you into one study arm or the other if that’s what you chose to do.”

He stood. “And Colonel Helin, I’m sorry the news couldn’t be any better. I want you to know we’ll do everything possible to help you through this.” He opened the door and closed it quietly.

“Bastard couldn’t wait to get out of here,” I groused.

Elaine nodded.

I dressed as if in a trance, my mind running in all directions.

Pushing the clinic door open, I rushed out into the hallway, afraid I might be sick. We stood at the elevator, waiting, then rode it to the ground floor.

My mind was reeling from what I had just heard. I felt good.

How could this be? How would I tell our children?

8

2 Arlington, VA, June 24, 1983, 5:00 a.m.

It had been about fifteen hours since Elaine and I had met with the doctor. In those long hours, I had worked my way through numbness, shock, fear, but mostly uncertainty.

I had tried to sleep, which seemed impossible. All I could think about was six years. Only six more years to live. Up until yesterday, I thought about my dad, who was almost ninety, and I assumed that would be me.

How was I going to deal with this? I would need to balance my work at the Pentagon with time for the treatments and visits to the NCI. How hard would those treatments be on my body?

Would they slow me down? Would I be able to keep working?

I needed to be at the top of my game for my job in the Pentagon. And the kids. How would I tell them? Should I wait until I knew more? It could crush them.

I couldn’t help but think about the road not traveled. What if I hadn’t joined the Army? Hadn’t gone to Vietnam? Maybe I wouldn’t have been exposed to Agent Orange, wouldn’t have gotten lymphoma.

I had grown up in Minneapolis. Not much military influence in my hometown. Few of my high school classmates had gone into the service. What had caused me to do it?

Thinking back made me get up and walk into the study and retrieve the family photo album. The third page showed a picture of my dad and his brother, Roy. They were both new recruits after

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From Army Regulations to Novels

World War One, my dad in the Marines and Roy in the Army.

Both smiling, obviously proud of serving their country.

The next page showed a picture of my dad taken several years later in his Marine dress uniform. He had spent nearly twenty years in the Marine reserves and rose to the rank of staff sergeant.

One afternoon, during my senior year in high school, he put his hand on my shoulder. “Unless things change, when you graduate from college in four years, you’ll be eligible for the draft.

If you have to go in the service, why not go in as an officer?”

He chuckled. “I can tell you from personal experience, it’s much better.”

I had to laugh, too. “I understand what you’re saying.”

So, at the end of the next summer, when it came time for me to enter college, I registered for the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), a four-year program. When you graduated with your B.S. degree, you were commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army.

During the first two years, the ROTC program required I only attend a couple of days a week for one credit. The last two years, the program intensified to three days a week and rated a three-credit course. Additionally, during my last two years, I received a small stipend which helped with my college expenses.

The summer between my junior and senior year in college, I attended a six-week boot camp at the old reserve training area adjoining Fort Riley, Kansas.

The six weeks included all of the normal boot camp training with P.T., range practice, field problems, etc. At the same time, we each took turns in the various leadership positions to gain the experience of commanding soldiers.

Each day our staff platoon sergeant dumped us out of bed at 4:30 in the morning with P.T., then I ended up shining my brass and getting my uniform ready for the next day at 10:00, twentytwo hundred hours.

We were housed in an antiquated wooden building with wooden floors that leaked, so cadets on the second floor mopping the floor leaked water through to the first floor, a mess for the

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guys on the first floor.

The heat in central Kansas kept us sweating all day long and at night also. I’ll have to admit it was a tough six weeks, but I learned a great deal to help me in the future. *** In June of 1962, I graduated with my B.S. in Business and a commission in the Army. Since I was a regular army officer, I received orders to begin active duty as soon as I graduated and would have a three-year commitment.

During the graduation ceremony from the University of Minnesota, I kept an eye on the sky as the rain clouds gathered over our open-air ceremony at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis.

As the university president began speaking, the rain cut loose, soaking each of us and causing the president to cut the ceremony short and say those magic words, “You’re all graduated. Now run for it.”

Upon graduation, I had orders to report to the Fifth Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colorado. To say I was only getting my feet on the ground in the Army would be the understatement of the year.

I didn’t plan very well for my trip to Fort Carson. The distance from Minneapolis to Colorado Springs measured about 900 miles, mostly freeway. I needed to report to my unit at Fort Carson by midnight on June 29th. Leaving Minneapolis at sixthirty that morning, I planned to drive the 900 miles in one day.

My mother had baked a tin of chocolate chip cookies. I ate cookies, smoked cigars, and drove, finally pulling into Colorado Springs at 2345 hours, a quarter to twelve. Another fifteen minutes, I would have been AWOL. Imagine that, AWOL on my first day of duty. Not much of a track record for a new lieutenant.

I had been careful about not driving over the speed limit all the way to Colorado Springs. However, when I arrived in the town itself, I sped a little faster than I should have and was pulled

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over by a local police officer.

A slender officer sauntered up to my Ford Fairlane and asked for my license and registration. “What’s your hurry, young man?”

“I’m a new second lieutenant and due to report to Fort Carson by midnight. I sure don’t want to be AWOL on my first day.”

He looked at me for a moment, then smiled. “Okay. I’ll just give you a warning, but you’d better slow down in our fair city. I don’t want to see you again.”

I sighed. “Thanks, officer. You’ve made your point.”

What a day. One to remember. Maybe one to forget. I didn’t share it with my dad. He would not have been proud of my first day on active duty. *** Without thinking of much else other than my new job, I settled in at Fort Carson after attending the basic officer course at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.

What I didn’t know at the time was that in response to the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961 and the presence of American missiles in Italy and Turkey, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev secretly agreed to Cuba’s request to place nuclear missiles on the island to deter a future United States invasion.

I would later learn that President Kennedy had convened a meeting of the National Security Council which discussed possible courses of action. The Joint Chiefs of Staff had unanimously agreed that a full-scale attack and invasion to be the best solution.

The Fifth Division was one of the Army’s STRAC (SKILLED, TOUGH, READY AROUND THE CLOCK) divisions — a key member of America’s quick reaction force.

Pieces of the decision began to seep down to us at Fort Carson from the Pentagon and we were placed on a higher alert status.

On October 22, 1962, President Kennedy delivered a televised address announcing the discovery of the missiles and detailed the administration’s plan for a strict quarantine on all offensive

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military equipment being shipped to Cuba by Russia.

During the speech, a directive went out to all U.S. forces worldwide, placing them at DEFCON 3 (short for “defense readiness condition, which is a measure of the level of alertness of the nation’s defense forces).

I watched his speech in my Bachelor Officer’s Quarter (BOQ) at Fort Carson. My phone rang and I was ordered to report to a briefing at our battalion headquarters.

We needed to be able to deploy within 72 hours and it sounded as if we were headed to Cuba. My company commander appointed me as duty officer to stay at the unit headquarters that night.

I must have shown my concern, so Sergeant Kelly said to me, “Don’t worry, Lieutenant. We could fly out with our lighter equipment, but we’ll need Conex Containers to move our heavy equipment, such as tanks and armored personnel carriers, by train.”

“That makes me feel a little better,” I replied, although I was still pretty nervous deep down.

“Once we arrive,” Kelly said, “we can offload the heavy stuff and, in this case, probably put it on ships to move it to Cuba.

Without those containers, I doubt we’ll be going anywhere.”

Kelly’s comments made me relax a little, and I took up my position at the battalion headquarters. I leaned back and watched the orderly room’s tiny T.V. set for anything more I could learn.

Were we going to war? When would we leave? What did the president expect?

I must have dozed a little because I was jarred awake by a banging at the door. I shook my head to clear it and checked my watch. Two o’clock. I hurried over and opened the door.

A young sergeant stood in the doorway, a large truck rumbling behind him. “Hey, Lieutenant, where do you want us to offload your Conex Containers?”

It hit me like a brick. This was it. We were going to war. I managed to recover and show the sergeant where we planned to load our heavy equipment.

The crisis continued unabated, and on the evening of October 13

From Army Regulations to Novels

24th, the Soviet news agency, TASS, broadcast a telegram from Khrushchev to Kennedy in which Khrushchev warned that the United States’s “outright piracy” would lead to war.

By this time, our heavy equipment was packed in the Conex containers, ready to be loaded onto rail cars. The first brigade package would be loading at 0400 hours the next morning to move out and prepare a site for the rest of the division once we arrived.

STRAC unit personnel always have their shots up to date and the legal staff had arrived earlier in the evening to ensure we all had wills and powers of attorney executed. That didn’t make me feel very good. Would I really need a will?

My parents and friends at home were frantic. I couldn’t share anything of what I knew as it was highly classified. That didn’t seem to matter as I had no idea what would actually happen. All I knew was I had a job to do and I’d better get as good at it as I could.

We heard on the news the U.S. had requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on October 25th. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai Stevenson, confronted the Soviet Ambassador challenging him to admit the existence of the missiles. He refused.

The next day at 2200 hours, the U.S. raised the readiness level of SAC forces to DEFCON 2, putting us on full alert status and making my heart beat like mad. We were going to war. I knew it and it scared the heck out of me.

Here I was, just a kid fresh out of college and I would be leading a platoon of men in a nuclear war. A brand new lieutenant in the middle of a nuclear battlefield. How would I do?

At this point, the crisis climbed to a stalemate. The Soviets had shown no indication they would back down from our navy’s efforts to block their ships.

We were reviewing our plans for an invasion and occupation of Cuba. The president did not keep these plans a secret. We all knew that with an array of Cuban and Soviet spies forever present, Khrushchev would be aware of our plans.

Still on hold at Fort Carson, all leaves had been canceled and 14

Don Helin

we were ready to move with a twelve-hour notice. Lead elements of the division were on site and had prepared for our arrival in Florida.

We found out later that on Saturday, October 27th, President Kennedy had secretly agreed to remove all missiles from Turkey and possibly southern Italy in exchange for Khrushchev removing all missiles in Cuba.

We stayed on the twelve-hour alert status for the next three days, then the Pentagon staff provided a stand-down order.

It took three weeks before we were able to get all the division resources back in order and properly maintained.

I learned a number of valuable lessons that would stand me in good stead during my career. No plan can ever be implemented in an absolute way. And perhaps most importantly, keep your cool during any crisis. I could have done better during those ten days.

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3 National Cancer Institute, June 28, 1983 The sobering news of the diagnosis I received during my doctor’s appointment four days earlier had settled in. Elaine and I were coming to grips with what needed to be done and had made an appointment with the administrative staff at the National Cancer Institute to determine our next steps.

We still hadn’t told our kids. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how to do it. They’d want details and the details could be deadly.

According to the doctors, unless some sort of miracle happened, I only had a little more than six years to live.

As the doctor had mentioned, the institute was conducting a study to determine the effect a tour in Vietnam and exposure to Agent Orange had on military personnel who contracted nonHodgkins lymphoma and if there might be any reason to suspect a cause and effect.

Agent Orange was a herbicide and defoliant chemical. It was widely used by the U.S. military as part of its herbicidal warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War to clear vegetation.

I still didn’t know how many others in the study were in stage four. Was I unusual? I didn’t feel unusual at all. As a matter of fact, I felt fine. That’s what made this so difficult.

Elaine and I had agreed we didn’t have much choice but to enter the study and hope the treatment could help me beat the lymphoma or at least delay the inevitable.

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We parked and caught the elevator up to the third floor.

When I checked in, the receptionist told me the administrative coordinator was running a little late, but that it wouldn’t be long.

Elaine had brought a book along and she opened it. I forgot to bring anything to read and probably wouldn’t have been able to focus on it, so I sat.

As usual, the memories of different choices came flowing in as they did every night. I found myself caught in a cycle of the roads not traveled. What it might have meant to me by choosing a different life trek. Would I now be in this position?

I began to think back and remembered after fourteen months at Fort Carson, I received orders to Germany. This brought me to another decision point in my life. In order to take my family with me to Germany on an accompanied tour, I had to extend my commitment in the Army by another year.

By not extending, I would have either stayed at Fort Carson until the end of my three years or would be sent on an unaccompanied tour to Germany.

But the idea of a three-year assignment to Germany brought into focus the excitement of foreign travel and new places to visit. It was too tempting to pass up, so I submitted my papers to extend my term of service to four years and subsequently received my orders to Seventh Army.

The Seventh Army was inactivated after World War Two. It was reactivated with headquarters in Stuttgart-Vaihingen, Germany, on 24 November 1950.

When I arrived in Europe in August 1963, the major subordinate commands of Seventh Army were the V Corps and VII Corps. I was assigned to V Corps, headquartered in Frankfurt with a duty station in the small town of Hoechst, located approximately twenty miles southwest of Frankfurt.

Permanent quarters were not available when we arrived in Germany, so we lived for a short while in a small German apartment about a twenty-minute drive from where I worked.

In an effort to feel more comfortable in Germany, I enrolled in a University of Maryland extension course to study German,

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taking four semesters. While I certainly was not fluent in German, I could at least make myself understood.

My unit spent a great deal of time in the field to prepare for the eventuality if the Russians and East Germans decided to attack. My first year I was an adjutant of a battalion-level organization, then the next two years a company commander, both assignments challenged me and taught me a great deal.

The most difficult time for me during my command tour occurred shortly after I assumed command. A young man arrived at my office saying he wanted to see me privately.

The first sergeant showed him in, then left us and shut the door. A sharp-looking private first class named Jackson stood before me. Since I was new, I didn’t know him well. As far as I could tell, he had been doing a good job. I couldn’t imagine what was troubling him.

I motioned him toward a chair and moved over to sit in my other chair. After he sat, I asked, “How may I help you.”

His face crumpled into tears. “I feel like I want to commit suicide.”

I was shocked and made a mental note to refer him to the social worker. “Whatever it is, I will try and help, but you’ve got to tell me what’s wrong.”

He stopped crying and said, “I’m gay. Some of the other guys found out. They’re laughing and pointing at me.”

I knew I needed to proceed carefully here. “There are steps we can take to help you, but you’ve got to trust me.”

“All right.”

I thought my way through my next points. “Are you aware the normal process is to board soldiers out of the army who are gay?”

He nodded.

I had to be careful in what I said. “Look. Give me a chance to determine the best and fastest steps to help you.”

He nodded again.

“I’m going to have to tell our first sergeant as I will need him to help me with the administration. Is that okay?”

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“Okay.” He stood and stepped out into the first sergeant’s office.

There were prescribed steps I had to take. Gay personnel were boarded out of the service under an administrative board process, called an Army Regulation 635-209 board as unsuitable for the Army.

Problem soldiers were boarded out under AR 635-208 as unfit. Under the 209 process, Jackson would receive a general discharge and not a bad conduct discharge.

I contacted my battalion commander and asked for his help to expedite the process, which he did.

Two days later, Jackson was back in my office. I shook his hand. “You’re a good soldier, Jackson, and I’m sorry to lose you.

I wish you the best in the future. And thanks for coming to me.

You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Don’t let anyone take that away or tear you down.”

He smiled at me. “Thank you, sir. I appreciate your help.”

“You’re welcome, Jackson. Now go out in the world and make something of yourself. I’d appreciate it if you’d stay in contact.”

Over the next year, I received letters from Jackson. He’d settled in his hometown of New York City and seemed to be doing well.

I only wish I could have done more for him. He was a good soldier and a nice young man. *** November 22, 1963, broke like any other day, with a little rain in the morning. A Friday, so when I got home from work that evening, we made plans to go to the movie, which started at 7:00 p.m.

We were getting ready to leave our apartment when the local radio station, Armed Forces Network Europe, made the startling announcement President Kennedy had been shot while traveling in Dallas.

“Did you hear that?” I asked my wife.

“What?”

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“I can’t believe I heard right. Something about the president getting shot. Must be a mistake and the announcer will correct it soon.”

“Let’s wait a few minutes before we leave for the show.”

In the evening, there were few other places to receive news.

For about thirty suspense-filled minutes we waited, listening to somber music, wondering what was going on. Finally, the announcer came back on and reported the president had indeed been shot and had died from his wounds.

“I can’t believe it,” I yelled. “President Kennedy assassinated.

Must be a mistake.”

We ran downstairs and knocked on the door of our German landlords. The woman opened the door, tears in her eyes.

She reached out and hugged us. “So sorry, sorry.” She motioned for us to come into the apartment. “Bitte.”

Their television showed pictures of Dallas where people were milling around and crying. We saw the square where the president had been shot.

I could only understand a few of the words, but the pictures were traumatic enough. There was no mistake. The impossible had happened. I can’t imagine anyone ever thought this was possible. I certainly didn’t.

I stumbled through a little German with my landlord.

“President Kennedy visited Berlin in Juni, shortly before I Kom Germany. He called out, ‘Ich bin ein Berliner.’”

She nodded, crying, “Ya Ya. Wonderlich.”

I will never forget the next few days. Our German friends were as sad as we were. We were able to follow the events on television except the narration was often in German. At work, we watched a television with American announcers.

I had read the background and thought about his trip to Texas. With the upcoming presidential election in 1964, Kennedy and his political advisers were preparing for the next campaign.

The first stop on his trip to Texas was San Antonio. This part of the trip went well. Why did he have to go to Dallas?

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We saw, again and again, the reruns of what had happened.

Each time I wished the outcome would be different, but, of course, it never changed. Never changed.

Again and again we saw the crowds lining the streets in Dallas, waving, yelling, jumping up and down to see the Kennedys. I wasn’t familiar with Dallas, but I got out a map and watched his trip again.

As he was passing the Texas School Book Depository, bullets struck the president’s neck and head, and he slumped over toward Mrs. Kennedy.

It was heartbreaking for all of us. We saw the car speed to Parkland Memorial Hospital just a few minutes away on reruns probably a dozen times. But we found out little could be done for the President.

We saw films of the Catholic priest summoned to administer the last rites, and at 1:00 p.m., central time, John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead. What a terrible loss.

I cried with our German landlord as we watched the reruns of the president’s body brought to Love Field and placed on Air Force One. Before the plane took off, Lyndon B. Johnson stood in the tight, crowded compartment and took the oath of office, administered by U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Hughes. What a terrible slice of history and we watched it in real-time.

To cap off a horrific and stunning weekend, on Sunday morning, we continued to watch the live television coverage.

Suddenly, I saw a man, later identified as Jack Ruby, aim a pistol and fire at Oswald, who died two hours later at Parkland Hospital.

All this seemed impossible at the time.

On Monday, we watched President Kennedy laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. We were locked into the television.

No one could stay away. I kept hoping that somehow I would hear it was all a mistake, a terrible mistake.

Nothing else seemed worth doing. Afterward, at the gravesite, Mrs. Kennedy and her husband’s brothers, Robert and Edward, lit an eternal flame for the president.

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I will never forget that weekend as I’m sure anyone who watched it would not. Kennedy represented a new generation, hopefully taking over and guiding our country in a new direction.

We all felt his loss.

For the next years, conspiracy theorists constructed many different stories about who was responsible and how it happened.

I didn’t care much about that. I simply felt the pain and loss. *** We took a number of trips during our three years in Germany.

Frankfurt stood centrally located in Europe — only six hours to Paris, four hours to Switzerland, ten hours into Italy.

Our trip to London would be the first significant trip. We looked forward to seeing all of the many landmarks, but also the plays and the festivals. Sadly, a week before we planned to depart, I heard a rumor my company would be receiving our annual inspector general’s inspection during the same time period.

“The inspection is always unannounced,” I told my wife, “but I’ve heard through the grapevine it will be the same week. Can you believe it?”

“No.” “We gotta cancel. I can’t afford to be gone during one of our biggest inspections of the year. My boss would have my neck.”

Of course, as it turned out, the inspectors did not come during that period. I knew if we canceled our trip, they would not be there. But I couldn’t take the chance.

Without a doubt, the best trip we took during the three years had to be Berlin. Berlin had a breathtaking number of sites to see and we wanted to experience as many as we could.

We walked around the Brandenburg Gate, spent almost an afternoon at the site of the Gestapo and S.S. police offices — almost breathing the fear people must have felt at that awful place. The Tiergartin, zoo, and many galleries were beautiful in the early summer.

For me, the highlight of our tour was a trip into East Berlin.

I had to travel in uniform because if I didn’t, and the guards 22

Don Helin

found out I was active duty military in civilian clothes, I could be arrested as a spy.

The USO hosted trips for active-duty military and their families into East Berlin going through Check Point Charlie. We boarded the bus at the USO and, with about twenty-five others, rode into East Berlin accompanied by our West-German guide.

Having a West-German guide was helpful as we received the truth about East Berlin and not a bunch of propaganda.

I’ll never forget the gut-wrenching feeling of traveling through the wall via the gate, the guards with their machine guns watching us. We were totally at the mercy of the East Germans and their Russian allies. Would today be the international incident causing us to end up in a jail in East Berlin? Didn’t want to think about that.

We only saw a few cars on the streets. I thought of all the rush-hour traffic in Washington D.C. Certainly no rush-hour traffic here.

Our guide pointed toward the stores. “Look at the store fronts.

The city actually looks pretty prosperous, doesn’t it? Stores look full of things to shop for, windows full of items to purchase.“ We all nodded. “Not too bad,” I called.

Our guide laughed. “However, the store fronts are all fakes.

There are no stores behind them. Only store front windows filled with products.”

“What?” A man called from the back.

“The East Germans want tourists to think they are economically prosperous. None of these stores are real, just phony store fronts.”

I had to chuckle at what they had done. Then I thought of all the stores back in Denver. Packed with goods to buy.

Happily, we safely returned from East Berlin and spent the next year on a number of field problems. The highlight of our last year in Germany had to be the birth of our daughter in a Frankfurt military hospital. What an incredible experience to meet that beautiful little person for the first time.

23

From Army Regulations to Novels

An interesting part of the experience for me was to find out she had dual citizenship, which meant she had until she turned eighteen to claim her German citizenship.

Her birth certificate did not list her as an American citizen, but rather a person born abroad in a U.S. Army Hospital of American parents. We later learned we’d need an Immigration and Nationalization (INS) document to ensure her American citizenship.

We shared this information with many of our military friends who didn’t realize the need for the additional documentation.

As we prepared to leave Germany, people began to talk about a place called Vietnam. I knew it was located in southeastern Asia, but I wasn’t sure exactly where.

Then we began to hear about the loss of friends who had been assigned to Vietnam, a heavy message to have to process.

We departed Germany in July 1966 for the United States.

Our doctor asked if we wanted something to help our eighteenmonth-old daughter sleep on the long flight back to the states.

That seemed like a great idea, so we asked him to write out a prescription.

I didn’t realize until we were en route that in some cases the medication worked the opposite way. Instead of making her drowsy, it gave her energy. Lots of energy.

So for the six-hour flight from Frankfurt to the east coast, I felt these little white shoes running up and down my chest. I was delighted when the stewardess called, “Fashion your seat belts for landing.”

We were home.

24

4 National Cancer Institute, July 28, 1983 I snapped out of my reverie remembering our tour in Germany by someone calling my name. I shook my head to clear it and looked around to see who called.

A short, slender woman in a long white coat stood by the door to one of the exam rooms. “Colonel Helin, would you please come this way?”

Elaine and I followed her into an exam room with a desk, an exam table, and three chairs.

She shut the door and motioned for us to be seated.

“Colonel Helin, my name is Joan. First of all, let me tell you how sorry I am about the test results. Our job here is to help you through this in any way possible.”

“I was told I might have only a little over to six years to live.

Can you do anything about that?”

As soon as I said it, I was sorry. She was trying to be helpful.

I looked out the window for a moment, then turned to her. “I’m sorry, but you probably realize this has been quite a shock.”

Joan nodded. “I can’t pretend to know how you feel, but I have talked to a number of patients in your same position. I do believe joining our study protocol will be helpful to you.”

She went onto explain what I could expect. “There are two branches to the study, and if you agree, we will randomize you into one or the other branch based on the flip of a coin.”

I looked out the window again for a moment. “Just a random chance of which branch?”

25

From Army Regulations to Novels

“That’s right. Many returnees from Vietnam have contracted cancer and we’re trying to figure exactly why and determine the best way to help them.”

I had to vent some of my frustration against the military.

“Probably the best way would be to force the government to admit Agent Orange could be the cause of many of the cancers Vietnam veterans are getting.”

My frustration continued to grow. “They are ducking the issue completely, and the Veterans Administration is not helping with claims by Vietnam veterans.”

“I understand, and settling that issue is one of the purposes of the study protocol. You’re not the first one with that complaint.”

She took a deep breath. “Our statistics show that an estimated three million veterans have been put at risk by Agent Orange exposure. From our review so far, there are about fifty diseases connected to exposure and almost twenty birth defects recognized in the children of Vietnam veterans.

“I hope you’re able to help us with the issue and I will try and do my part. Now, my wife and I have agreed I should enter the study. Can you go over in detail what we can expect?”

“If you continue with our study, Colonel, I think we can help you and many other veterans. Depending on which track you enter, the active part will run about two years. At the end of that period, you will be followed for the rest of your life to determine the effect of that treatment on your cancer.”

“How long will it last?” Then I was sorry for what I said as I knew the answer. She seemed to understand what I was asking.

“Yes, we will follow you for the rest of your life to see if the treatment helped and by how much. We will be comparing your results to the members in the other arm of the study.

Before I said anything more I would regret, I decided it was time to leave. I stood and my wife followed suit. “Will you send me all the information on the study protocol and what I’ll need to do to get started.”

Joan nodded. “We can set another appointment after you review everything so you can ask any further questions.”

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Don Helin

She stood. “Once we have all the concurrences, we’ll ask you to fill out all of the necessary paperwork. You’ve been in the military for a long time so you understand paperwork.”

I had to laugh at her comment. “I certainly do. Thanks for your time and patience.”

“You bet. We’d like to help you in any way we can. I hope you can help by volunteering for the study. We think we can prove the government has been wrong in not helping Vietnam vets who have suffered so much.”

I smiled for the first time that day. “Thank you.”

When we got out in the hallway, I turned to Elaine. “I really like Joan. I feel like I can trust her to tell me the truth.”

Elaine reached to push for the elevator. “I agree and was about ready to say the same thing. Let’s just relax and let this soak for a couple of days, then get all the papers out.” *** When we reached the car, I asked Elaine to drive and I sat in the passenger seat looking out the window. She seemed to realize I wasn’t ready to talk yet.

As we pulled out of the parking lot, my mind drifted to an incident, a decision point that probably contributed more to my current situation than any other.

It was the summer of 1969. I had just turned twentynine with about seven years in the service. I stood at another potential career decision point in my life with my application to attend the University of Iowa for a Master’s Degree in Business Administration.

One afternoon I received a letter the Army had approved my application. What great news. All of my expenses at the university are covered. I could turn it down and probably get out of the Army or accept it and receive a six-year extension commitment to my service obligation.

The approval required I spend two years on active duty for each year in school. Since the program would probably take me two years to complete, I would, in effect, be signing up for six 27

From Army Regulations to Novels

more years. At that time, I’d have around thirteen years in the service, over halfway to a twenty-year retirement.

It seemed like such a great opportunity, I chose to accept it, recognizing the time I’d be required to stay in the Army.

It took a couple of months for me to close out my responsibilities with the Combat Developments Command in Texas and clear post, then we bid farewell to our friends in San Antonio and the four of us headed for Iowa City.

We had made many good friends in San Antonio and looked forward to perhaps returning at some point in the future. It would always be a special place in our hearts as our son, Rick, was born at Brooke Army Medical Center in December 1967.

He’d had medical issues during his birth which scared us.

As it turned out my blood type was O positive and my wife’s O negative. Unfortunately, this required a complete blood transfusion for Rick shortly after he was born.

I can still remember pacing the floors of the hospital, worried sick about the surgery and waiting for the surgeons to finish.

Finally, the surgeon came out of the O.R. and I rushed over to him.

“How’s my son?” I asked.

“The surgery went well and he’s fine. I don’t expect any further problems.”

I sunk down in a chair, relief pouring off me. “Thank you, doctor, I was so worried.”

I wanted to run outside and yell the good news to the world— what a relief.

We did call grandparents who were hanging by their phones as well as our friends who were watching Lisa. This turned out to be a very good day.

28

5 Iowa City, Iowa, August, 1969 I was excited about the opportunity to return to school. The preceding eighteen months had been heartbreaking for our nation. My wife and I still mourned the deaths of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, assassinated in June of 1968, and Reverend Martin Luther King, assassinated just two months earlier. It seemed like madness had struck our country.

Protests against the war in Vietnam became more and more violent. Massive confrontations occurred between police and protesters during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.

I watched on television as police beat protesters who had set buildings on fire.

With this horrific backdrop, my family and I arrived in Iowa City a month before school opened for the fall semester. We found a townhouse to meet our needs. Since we were expecting our third child in November, we made sure we had more room than we did in San Antonio.

The 1800-acre campus of the University of Iowa was located in the heart of Iowa City on the banks of the Iowa River — a beautiful setting.

We were delighted with the outstanding hospital facilities here in Iowa City. My wife was pregnant and we were concerned because of the transfusion our son, Rick, had required when we lived in San Antonio.

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From Army Regulations to Novels

Fortunately, our doctor in San Antonio had forwarded the case file and talked to the staff here about the challenges he had faced because of the different blood types.

The staff was well prepared and we were delighted to welcome a beautiful young lady the first November we were in Iowa City.

It was a relief to see our new daughter and even more so that she was healthy.` Shortly after we arrived in Iowa City, I drove over to the business school and formally registered in the MBA program, then selected the courses for my fall semester.

The world-famous Iowa Writers Workshop was founded in 1936 here at the University. Since 1947, it has produced thirteen Pulitzer Prize winners.

Twenty-five students affiliated with the Writers’ Workshop had won a Pulitzer Prize. I hoped to meet members of the faculty at the workshop and hear talks by those writers. Perhaps if I had room on my schedule, I could take a course or two.

My military friends told me to be alert and keep a low profile as many soldiers had been jeered or even assaulted across the country.

The threat to military members was high and I needed to watch my step. I didn’t think anyone would hurt my family or me, but sadly I couldn’t be sure.

Our involvement in Vietnam had been controversial from its beginnings, with many in the country against the war and even the military draft.

I saw this frustration in my classmates when they heard I was active duty military, so it seemed to take extra time for me to make friends.

The spark which set off more riots at the university as well as across the country occurred near the end of my second semester at school.

President Nixon authorized U.S. soldiers to invade Cambodia on April 30, 1970, as the North Vietnamese used safe havens in Cambodia to launch attacks on the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese as well as on U.S. forces.

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At nearby Kent State University in Ohio, the protests began in earnest on May 1st, the day after the invasion. I watched on television in our campus union as hundreds of student protesters at Kent State gathered around the university.

I shook my head. “Look at all the student speakers. They are yelling and crying. Tensions look sky-high. I’m worried someone is going to get hurt.”

The friend I watched it with agreed. “It’s because Nixon authorized the thrust into Cambodia. If I were Nixon or even his representative, I’d be careful. It looks to me like they would kill him if they could get to him.”

I watched with growing concern the television reports on clashes between the students and local police in downtown Kent and realized the same thing happened in Iowa City and other cities around the country.

The Kent city mayor declared a state of emergency and contacted Ohio Governor James Rhodes for the assistance of the National Guard.

Fortunately, the protests in Iowa City were centered around the school and the field house and not in the surrounding community.

I’d hoped the students would not seek out housing areas.

They seemed in a mood to inflict real damage. I checked in with my wife on a regular basis to make sure everyone was all right at home.

By the time the National Guard arrived at the Kent State campus on the night of May 2nd, protesters had already set fire to the school’s ROTC building. I saw on television scores of students watching and cheering as it burned.

The protests continued well into the night. It scared me to think about it. I hoped the protests in Iowa City didn’t escalate.

So far, there were a number of marches and demonstrations, but I didn’t see any real damage at the school or in the surrounding community.

I knew that could change quickly. I had to be careful. Could we send our daughter to school in the morning? I wasn’t sure what to do.

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As it turned out the next day, activists spoke out against the presence of the National Guard on the campus at Kent as well as the Vietnam War in general.

When I arrived in downtown Iowa City, I headed over to the student union to see what was going on. When I walked in, one of my friends saw me and called, “I hope this mess doesn’t turn violent there or here in Iowa City.”

I nodded and kept my gaze on the television. “Looks like the protestors aren’t about to disperse.”

We continued to watch the television. My friend called, “Oh, my god, look. They’re shouting and throwing rocks at the guardsmen.”

I hurt for the kids on both sides — the students and the young guardsmen. I doubted the guardsmen were properly trained for what they were facing.

I turned to my friend. “This is going to turn mean quickly.

Somebody’s going to get hurt. I can feel it.”

About this time, a group of students paraded through our student union carrying signs and shouting, “Stop the war — leave Vietnam.”

They stopped close by where I sat. Many of the students sitting in the union and drinking coffee stood and shouted with the protestors. I suspected if I’d been in uniform, I could have had a problem.

I shifted my attention back to the television. The student protestors pushed the guardsmen back and the guardsmen retreated up a short hill.

When they reached the top of the hill, the guardsmen turned and fired their rifles—some shot into the air, but some shot directly into the crowd of protesters.

“Oh no,” I cried. “They’re shooting into the crowd. Those students are going to get hurt. Maybe badly.”

As we watched, the announcer came on. “We’re receiving reports from our news team students are being shot. They’re calling 911 for medical help for the students.”

There were shouts and cries by the students inside the union next to me. People were yelling, crying.

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It wasn’t long before we heard the awful news transmitted across the country. Four Kent State students had been killed, and nine others injured.

The shouts and cries continued around me. I sat in stunned silence, watching the news reports. I knew more protests would break out here in Iowa City and at other colleges across the country.

I couldn’t watch anymore, so I excused myself and went outside. I walked over to the lot and sat in my car. All of this made me cry for those students and for the guardsmen. None of them would ever be the same again.

I snapped to and figured I’d better drive to our daughter’s school and pick her up. After I picked her up, we drove home.

My wife was watching the protests.

“Be careful when you go into class tomorrow,” she said.

“Tempers are going to be sky high and these protests could turn mean here.”

I nodded. “I know. Oh, how I know.” *** The protests continued at the University of Iowa as well as at other universities well into the night. We decided to keep our daughter and son home from school the next day.

I walked to class, leaving our car parked in the townhouse parking lot. It seemed safer there.

When I reached the university proper, I could see the damage the student protesters had inflicted. Windows broken, garbage strewn along the streets, a few cars upended. Paper and trash everywhere. It didn’t appear any students had been hurt here in Iowa City, but I couldn’t tell for sure.

When I reached the business school, things didn’t look much different. I walked into class and saw about half of the students in the classroom. Many of them looked exhausted and several had tears in their eyes.

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Our professor sat at his desk in the front of the room. I knew he was against the war as we’d had many lively, but friendly discussions about it.

I caught his gaze and shook my head, no words necessary.

We were both saddened at the unnecessary loss of life.

I sat at my desk and waited, not sure what to expect. What in the world could anyone say?

The professor waited until a few latecomers stumbled in the door, and everyone took their seats. “Okay, who wants to start?”

One student, tears streaming down her cheeks yelled, “What can you expect? Those soldiers are trained to kill and that’s what they did. Killed those poor, defenseless students.”

There were a number of cries of yes, murderers, killers.

After about fifteen minutes, the professor glanced at me, a questioning look in his eyes. “Don?” Most members of our class knew I was in the military and watched me. I felt myself in a tough position, but decided I’d better give it a try.

“What happened yesterday was tragic,” I began. “Tragic first because of the loss of life and injuries, but secondly because it was so unnecessary.”

“Those guardsmen were put in a position they weren’t trained for. Many of them were young, no older than the students they faced. They panicked and this awful tragedy happened.”

I waited a moment. At least some of the students watched me.

Some did not. “I have to blame their supervisors. Their leaders should have known better. Should have sent in trained soldiers and done a better job of planning. They must have known things could get out of hand.”

I saw a number of heads nodding. “But, we can’t let the soldiers off the hook either. They shouldn’t have pulled those triggers with weapons facing the students.”

I waited a minute, then finished my thought. “They obviously panicked because of their fear of the crowds and the rocks. This was a terrible moment in our history. We must figure a way to handle situations like this before anyone else is injured.”

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Don Helin

I looked around the classroom, wondering what to say next. I knew deep down there was little else I could do or say.

Many understood what I meant, but others began talking. Some students cried they could never be in the military.

I sat and the class lapsed into silence, then we all filed out of the classroom. We hadn’t solved anything, but at least a number of us had gotten together to try and help each other cope.

I walked over to my next class, but saw a sign on the door the class had been canceled. The next day the University of Iowa, like most other colleges across the country, closed for the remainder of the Spring semester.

Since the draft was still in effect, I heard many say they were leaving for Canada rather than go into the military. I learned some of my fellow students did eventually move to Canada to avoid the draft.

The Kent State shooting remained symbolic of the division in public opinion about the Vietnam War. Military members in uniform were screamed at and many had red paint thrown on their uniforms.

Even though I wore civilian clothes, I had to be careful where I went. I believe those shootings permanently changed many of our citizens’ perception of the military.

As for me, I completed the fall semester with a sad feeling about all that had happened. Shortly before I graduated, I received orders to Vietnam.

When we left Iowa City, I drove with my family to Minneapolis where they would stay while I was in Vietnam.

The idea of leaving my family overwhelmed me. I knew I had to do it. Others had done it and now it was my turn. A year without seeing my family. One of the hardest things I would ever have to do.

35

6 Arlington, Virginia, August 1983 It had been two months since I had received my diagnosis of T-cell lymphoma and a month since I had decided to enter the National Cancer Institute protocol.

According to Joan at NCI, I would need to paint the compound of nitrogen mustard on my body every day for one year, then every other day for a second year. After that, it would depend on results.

I hated to do it because of the probable damage to my skin, but apparently the solution had been successful in treating cancer and I had no choice.

I had read all the material I could find to make sure I did everything correctly. The protocol called for me to paint myself with a derivative of nitrogen gas, first used during World War I as a chemical warfare agent. It appeared to have an effect on bone marrow and white blood cells, so researchers began to investigate its use as a treatment for different types of cancer.

Some of the warnings listed included not to apply the nitrogen mustard on sensitive areas such as the face, specifically the eyes. Exposure of mucous membranes such as nostrils and mouth should likewise be avoided.

Unfortunately, the risk of developing secondary skin cancers is increased in patients who have received multiple skin treatments, such as phototherapy or radiation in addition to topical nitrogen mustard. I was told to make sure there would be

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no skin contact with another person for at least one hour after application.

The bottom line appeared to be that nitrogen mustard was a dangerous material and should only be used when absolutely required. Sadly for me, it appeared to be absolutely needed.

All of this hit me hard one afternoon. I sat on the floor of the bathroom after I finished my procedure and looked up at the window. What was I doing to my body? Was applying this material to my skin the only alternative? Were there other options?

I cursed my decision to get a master’s degree at the University of Iowa which then led to my tour in Vietnam. What I had encountered could have been the direct result of my exposure to Agent Orange. I probably would never know for sure.

Sadly, I couldn’t stay away from the darn stuff and still do my job. Therefore, I couldn’t do my job and stay safe, so here I sat.

After a few minutes of feeling sorry for myself, I stood up and told myself to quit being a baby. You chose this course, I thought, made the decisions that led you here and you’d better get with the program. Your family depends on you doing your best to beat this disease.

When I finished, I wandered out to the porch and thought back to my tour in Vietnam.

I remembered how difficult it was to get on that airplane to Vietnam, leaving them for a whole year. Somehow I was able to maintain some degree of composure at the Minneapolis airport while saying goodbye to my family. *** The Pan American jet was scheduled to leave Minneapolis on a cold January day in 1971 at 2100 hours (9:00 p.m.), something I had been dreading all that day.

At the gate, I hugged each one of my children, then hugged them again, then gave everyone a group hug. It would be a year before I saw them again — a long year. And from what I’d been reading in the paper and seeing on television, I had no guarantee I would return. All those thoughts made me shudder.

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From Army Regulations to Novels

I told them I’d be back and would hug each of them again.

Finally, I had to force myself to pull away and walk toward the gate.

I turned at the gate and waved, blowing kisses through the tears. I turned and tripped through the doorway, having trouble seeing where I was going. The stewardess must have realized my dilemma, so she took hold of my elbow and balanced me slightly to help me get back to my seat.

“I bet you’re headed to Vietnam,” She whispered.

I nodded, unable to speak.

“I can’t imagine how difficult it would be. Rest assured, I’ll set you up with some free drinks once we get started.”

I nodded again and managed to find and slip into my seat. I looked out the window, trying to catch sight of my family again, but couldn’t spot them.

I kept staring out the window, numb until the stewardesses hurried down the aisle to make sure we had fastened our seatbelts.

The pilot backed away from the gate and our Pan American jet rumbled down the runway, picking up speed as we went.

I settled back in my seat for the twenty-three-hour flight. The route took us to Anchorage, Alaska, where we refueled, then to Japan to refuel again before we flew on to Vietnam.

By the time I landed at Tan Son Nhut Air Base in the late morning on the first of February, my joints ached from being crammed into a seat. I wasn’t excited about arriving in Vietnam, but I was glad to get off the airplane after all that time and stretch.

Tan Son Nhut Air Base claimed fame as a Republic of Vietnam Air Force facility. Located near Saigon, we used it as a major base during the war. The North Vietnamese took it over after the war and the base remains in their control today.

As I stepped off the plane, I couldn’t believe the heat and humidity. I just stood there and started to sweat. I had been used to January in Minneapolis and the change slapped me in the face.

After we in-processed and cleared customs, I climbed on a bus and spent about forty-five minutes bouncing on a bumpy road to Long Binh, where the U.S. Army Vietnam (USARV) Headquarters was located.

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Once I completed my in-processing, I found out I would be assigned as a plans officer in USARV headquarters.

The day after my arrival, I met with the major whom I’d be replacing. He told me he liked his job, but it required a great deal of travel throughout Vietnam.

“Be careful,” he said. “You’ll be traveling all over Vietnam by fixed-wing plane, helicopter, truck, and jeep. Each mode with its own dangers.”

He shared with me one of his flights in the U-21, a singleengine, six-seater plane. “We left Danang for our trip south and as we approached the airfield here in Long Binh, the wheels stuck and wouldn’t drop.

“Our pilot circled several times to run down the fuel level, as I got more and more nervous. He told us to put our heads down between our knees and called, “Hang on!”

Thankfully at the last minute, we heard him exclaim, “Thank god, the wheels dropped.”

To be honest, I couldn’t stop shaking for hours.”

His comment shook me up. “That’s awful. Do things like that happen often?”

“Not to me. Haven’t heard of other cases. But I’m glad I’m headed home so I don’t have to find out.”

His comment made me hope I wouldn’t travel too often on a U-21. Actually, I would because the distance on many of our trips to the northern section of Vietnam made it necessary.

Fortunately, I never had a flight when the wheels didn’t drop, but I’ll have to say I thought about his story every time I flew.

Because the military was reducing strength in Vietnam, I would help plan each redeployment segment. The segments had to be carefully designed to ensure balance in the various installations around the country.

The Army had experienced problems in earlier redeployments as each base had a mix of combat, combat support, and combat service support units.

For example, we didn’t want to redeploy one of the larger combat units, then leave the combat service support units with no one to support and no one to protect them. This continued to 39

From Army Regulations to Novels

be a challenge and one which would keep me busy throughout my assignment.

During my tour I helped plan four redeployments. Each would require travel to a different section of the country to coordinate with the various units. Then we’d develop a plan as to which ones we would be leaving and in what order.

Once the command determined where the next reduction would take place, a team of us would travel to that location. All of our plans were classified Top Secret, Limited Distribution.

The timing of the moves was critical information. When we selected a unit for redeployment, they would begin packing equipment and adjusting personnel strength, thus being less able to defend themselves.

For me, this part of the assignment was the most dangerous because of all the travel and the temporary nature of our lodging while at the site.

However, it certainly was the most interesting. I had the opportunity to see all parts of the country and actually spend time in each of the areas to learn in detail the various unit structures.

For example, if we redeployed a combat brigade in the north, we’d need to ensure the rest of the units supporting that brigade were appropriately reduced.

Our first redeployment Increment was planned to be in Military Region (M.R.) I which was in the northern-most area of Vietnam. Cites in MR I included Quang Tri, Hue, and Da Nang.

The challenge for us as planners was this particular Military Region had a large number of Marine units, so we’d need to coordinate with Marine planners. Also, since Quang Tri was located on the border with North Vietnam, it had to be one of the most dangerous areas in all of Vietnam. Sappers and snipers were prevalent and we’d need to be on alert all the time.

Each Increment ran approximately ninety days as it took time to ensure coordination with the units involved to determine who would pick up the mission of the deploying unit. Additionally, the personnel staff had a requirement to move the personnel once we selected the unit.

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Those soldiers, new in country, would be transferred to other units, but soldiers who had been in country at least six months could be considered for early reassignment home. This all depended on the needs for each particular soldier’s skills in country.

The Second Increment took place with units in MR II, primarily the central highlands — Pleiku —and along the coast around Nha Trang.

Pleiku was primarily an army position, but it was infested with Viet Cong and regular North Vietnamese soldiers as sections of the command were close to the western border of Vietnam and Cambodia.

Because of the location, we found it difficult to move units and prepare them for deployment while maintaining the necessary security. This continued to be a problem during my entire tour in Vietnam.

The Third Increment comprised units in MR IV located in the southern portion of the country around Can Tho and the Delta. The Delta contained units primarily with a water-based capability. This required close coordination with the navy as their extensive gunboat fleets provided security to units located near the rivers.

We planned the Fourth Increment for units in MR III located in central Vietnam, including Long Binh and Saigon. This planning began toward the end of my tour but was complicated with the challenges of dealing with the drug nightmare.

We had just begun to coordinate with units in that area when the drug challenges multiplied. Immediately we realized we needed to build up a capability to deal with drugs rather than redeploy a number of those units.

I found myself wearing down from the travel and the tension of working with so many different units. Not only did we have a mammoth drug problem in Vietnam, but another problem hit, which was more of a morale problem than a staffing problem. ***

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From Army Regulations to Novels

Even though the My Lai massacre had taken place on March 16, 1968, almost three years before my arrival in Vietnam, I had no idea at the time how it would impact me in so many ways.

Between 350 and 530 unarmed civilians had died that day at the hands of American soldiers. The victims included men, women, children, and tiny infants.

The incident prompted global outrage when it became public knowledge in November 1969, one year and a half after it had happened and approximately two months into my master’s program at the University of Iowa.

I remembered arriving at the university student union the first morning after the New York Times published information about the massacre.

Gerry, one of my study group friends asked, “How could our soldiers do something like that? I thought we were the good guys. How?” I walked over to the coffee machine to pour myself a cup of badly needed coffee. I couldn’t think of anything to say. “I don’t know,” I stammered, “I hope it isn’t true.”

But, of course, it was true, and like many of my student friends, I didn’t know how we could do something like that.

“The other thing I can’t understand,” Gerry asked, “is how we could just be hearing about it now, nineteen months after it happened?”

I took a sip of coffee to give myself time to think, but came up dry on things to say. “I have no idea how this all happened. It appears to have cover-up written all over it.”

“Ya know,” he continued, “this makes the military look terrible.”

I shook my head and took another sip of coffee. We’d discussed this in class, and I would probably be the center of attention.

I was never successful in answering my friends’ questions about Mai Lai because I had no idea what to say. They were right, asking how we could do it and why did it take so long for the press to find out about it.

Time passed and the more we heard, the worse it got.

Twenty-six soldiers were charged with criminal offenses, but 42

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only Lieutenant William Calley, a platoon leader, was found guilty of killing twenty-two villagers.

It frustrated me that during the four-month-long trial, Calley had the gall to claim he was only following orders from his commanding officer.

Despite his plea, he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison on 29 March 1971, shortly after I arrived in Vietnam. This caused quite a stir among many of my friends. Many thought it was unfair. I did not but seemed to be in the minority.

Two days later, President Nixon made matters worse by making the controversial decision to have Calley released from armed custody at Fort Benning, Georgia, and put under house arrest pending appeal of his sentence. This action caused more upset in the country and among my friends.

The Secretary of the Army was quoted in The New York Times in 1976 as stating, “Calley’s sentence was reduced because Calley honestly believed that what he did was a part of his orders.”

Back in Vietnam, as the news kept breaking, my fellow officers and I discussed the decisions among ourselves at our offices in Long Binh.

Many of my friends believed the villagers were guilty of supporting the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese, therefore were fair game for the soldiers.

One argued. “A few days before the massacre, a number of our guys, including a very popular sergeant, were killed by the V.C. near the village. How would you feel about that?”

I’d heard many of my friends say they really hated the Vietnamese because of all the awful things the Viet Cong had done to our soldiers and called them all sorts of awful names.

“I wouldn’t like it, but I wouldn’t go around killing five hundred civilians.”

I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the command structure that was supposed to keep all the soldiers under control. As a recently formed unit, it didn’t seem the division was well organized.

I finally gave up arguing my position. Emotions were still high, and sadly, opinions seemed set in stone.

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I tried to stay put the last couple of weeks in December as the command entered the holiday season. Fortunately, the word on the street was that Bob Hope would be coming to Long Binh. An exciting thought and I for one, was certainly looking forward to the visit.

44

7 Long Binh, Vietnam Christmas Day 1971 broke hot and humid at Long Binh.

The past eleven months had gone by quickly because we were so busy, but our team paid a price from all of the travel and the tension from security concerns. We never knew when a sapper, a Viet Cong with explosives strapped to their body, would strike.

It definitely kept us on our toes.

But today wasn’t just another day in the republic as we always called it, today Bob Hope would be arriving at three o’clock and we were all excited. Planners expected 25,000 troops from various points around Vietnam to attend.

At 0600 hours, I stood at the map board, ready to make my presentation on significant enemy events throughout the command, shaking the sleep out of my eyes from last night’s multiple mortar attacks by the Viet Cong.

Our heavy guns responded to each attack blasting the V.C. out of their skins. The big guns kept the V.C. back from the wire, but made it impossible to sleep with the noise and building shaking.

I was still down from my call back to the states via Ham Operators to talk with my wife and kids the night before. We were limited to three minutes and had to say “over” after each of our comments so the radio operators would know when to switch the connection. My son was still too small and he got confused when to say “over” between comments.

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Memories of home made my mind slip back to growing up in Minneapolis. Christmas morning with snow and all the decorations. Wonderful memories. Then the sergeant-major called attention. Oops, time to get to work.

The time dragged until noon, when we planned to head to the site where the troops would gather. We left the office and reached the airfield twenty minutes later. The crowd was already beginning to fill the bleachers.

We sat there, sweating, watching, and waiting impatiently.

Finally, at three o’clock, the general walked on the stage and introduced Bob Hope. A deafening roar of shouts and applause broke loose and there he stood, walking onto the stage with his golf club swinging from his right hand. He launched into his opening monologue of rapid-fire jokes.

“Here I am at Long Binh,” he said, “the Pentagon on salt tablets. I understand you guys sleep here at attention. On the way over in our jeep,” he continued, “I saw a Christmas display, but it didn’t have any wise men. Apparently, they were all on R & R in Bangkok.”

He was a genius with jokes and had all 25,000 of us in stitches.

“President Nixon is on his way to China,” he said. “He’s eating the rice okay with chopsticks, but is having trouble with the soup. Or over in China,” he continued, “a country of 800 million people, which proves they are doing more than just playing ping pong.”

For two precious hours, the fact we were in a hot, bowl-shaped stadium and away from home on Christmas was forgotten by all of us.

When he finished, Martha Ray came out and entertained.

After her act, Ann Margaret arrived. She was a huge hit, dressed in tight shorts and a tank top. She even got one of the soldiers up on stage to dance with her. He was the envy of every guy in the audience and we all laughed and applauded like mad.

All too soon, the show began to wind down. The closing number was Silent Night. All 25,000 GI’s, on a sun-drenched airfield thousands of miles from home, many with tears in their eyes, stood and sang all the verses. I certainly had tears in my eyes as I thought of home, family, and prior Christmases.

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Bob Hope’s performance helped break the monotony, ease the loneliness, and gave all of us who saw him a couple of hours of laughter. It truly was a memory for a lifetime. *** The use of heroin in Vietnam became an epidemic toward the end of my tour and consumed much of my time during my last six weeks in country.

I couldn’t believe how easy it was for soldiers to obtain heroin and worse yet, the almost 100 percent strength content made it easy for soldiers to become addicted.

Many soldiers simply smoked it. I heard from a friend that one of her men was able to smoke heroin while he was receiving a reprimand. She couldn’t believe she didn’t even realize it until someone told her.

To make matters worse, the press hyped the idea the army in Vietnam was discharging large numbers of heroin users despite pledges from President Nixon and the Pentagon to keep drug addicts in the Army for the special help they would need to recover.

We put together estimates that hovered between 1,000 and 2,000 soldier users being discharged each month. This often happened after the soldier had twice been certified as a heroin user on the basis of urinalysis and after his commanding officer asserted the soldier was “of negligible value to the United States Army.”

On June 17, 1971, President Nixon declared a special “War on Heroin” in a message to Congress. He announced legislation would be sought to permit the military services to retain for treatment any individual due for discharge who had been diagnosed addicted to drugs.

This hit our command like a bomb. The USARV commander directed our team to immediately establish two “drug treatment centers,” or detoxification centers, one at Long Binh where I was stationed and one at Cam Ranh Bay along the coast.

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I worked near the Long Binh center. It took us about five days to establish the facility.

Soldiers found to be heroin users in the compulsory urinalysis program given when they were ready to rotate back to the states were sent to treatment centers where they were closely guarded and “dried out” for four to seven days.

While I was there, the command had established eleven réhabilitation centers. At the centers, users could volunteer for treatment and counseling for two weeks.

A soldier could volunteer only once for admission to a rehabilitation center. If he or she was found to be on heroin after leaving, he was referred to the treatment center.

I found there was wide disagreement between the senior officers at the medical command and the younger officers and enlisted caseworkers over the seriousness of the Army’s problem.

Not surprisingly, the command was more optimistic.

Our available statistics showed the compulsory urinalysis program at redeployment had turned up 3.7 percent of the soldiers tested as heroin users, a drop from 5.6 percent when the testing program began in June.

We found the results of a questionnaire indicated that only eight percent of the users “mainline,” or inject heroin directly into their veins. The rest simply smoke or sniff it.

This led the command to conclude the chances of these soldiers staying off drugs once they left the Army were better than had been expected.

The most pronounced difference of opinion between the medical command staff and the caseworkers concerned the question of whether the Vietnam narcotics user would be able to stay off drugs when they returned to the United States and become a normal member of society.

I tended to agree with the caseworkers. The average soldier would probably need help to stay clean.

48

8 January 28, 1972 I flew home out of Tan Sa Knut Airbase in Vietnam at the end of January 1972, on orders to Colorado after a thirty-day leave with my family in Minneapolis.

Leaving Vietnam in one piece and homeward bound to be united with my family thrilled me. I’d made it. It had been a full year since I had seen any of my three children.

I flew back with my long-time friend, Ray Leahey. Ray had worn his dress uniform while I decided to travel in civilian clothes.

I wasn’t sure where I’d be able to change once we arrived in San Francisco and had heard the awful things protesters were doing to anyone in uniform — throwing paint and various dyes at them.

We were about forty-five minutes out of Saigon when the stewardess stopped at our seats, leaned over and whispered to Ray, “We have two open spots in first-class and wondered if you two G.I.s would like to move up. I’m sure Vietnam had to be a great place to leave and I’ll bet you’re glad to be headed home to spend time with your families.”

I wanted to yell to her hooray, but we both simply nodded enthusiastically and grabbed our stuff, following her up to first class.

Once we were seated, she gave us the menu. “We’ll be serving steaks later, but for now, we have tasty red or white wine if you’d like it.”

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Ray glanced at me as I was busy pinching myself about our good luck and whispered, “White. Go with the white.”

He whispered, “Two white wines, please.”

She smiled, probably one of the prettiest smiles I’d seen in the past year, and walked up the aisle to fill our order.

I’ll have to admit, both Ray and I watched her walk up the aisle. I whispered to Ray, “A beautiful and thoughtful woman.”

He whispered back, “I agree. Love getting back into the world.”

A woman sitting in the aisle across from us must have been watching and glanced over. “Looks like it’s been a long tour.” She laughed. “Welcome back to the world of ‘round eyes.”

When the stewardess returned and handed us our wine, she said, “We have a bar upstairs for first-class customers. You’re welcome to walk up those stairs over there and enjoy yourselves.

The view is terrific. It’s like you can see forever.”

I’d forgotten we were on a charter 747 jet and they had a second-floor deck bar. I tapped Ray’s arm. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go.”

The stewardess stepped back and motioned us to head for the stairs. “I have to emphasize the view is lovely up there. I go up there whenever I can.”

We each took a sip of wine, toasted her in thanks, then maneuvered our way up the steps, being careful not to slip as the stairs were narrow or spill the all so important wine.

The day stood clear, the sun shining, and the sky outside did seem to flow on forever.

I raised my glass to Ray. “I have to tell you I’m glad you decided to travel in uniform. This is a bit of all right.”

We enjoyed the view, talking to others at the bar, and drinking another glass of wine.

I whispered to Ray, ‘I think I’d better walk back down now, so I don’t fall down those narrow stairs in another half hour or glass of wine.”

He laughed and nodded. “Let’s do it before we have to be carried down on a litter.”

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Ray and I maneuvered back to our seats. I promptly fell sound asleep after pushing back my comfortable business class seat and slept all the way to Okinawa before waking for dinner. I had to get out some aspirins to calm my thumping head.

I downed one of the best meals in a year, steak, a baked potato, and some terrific peach pie—what a great way to close out our year in Vietnam.

As we walked up the aisle of the plane after we landed, I caught up with our stewardess. “Thanks again for moving us up to first class. It made for a wonderful trip home.”

She smiled a lovely smile. “You’re so welcome. I know the military is getting a bad rap, but I’ve got to tell you, I’m a fan.

Enjoy your time at home.”

I reached over to shake her hand. “Thanks again. It means a lot.”

She smiled again. “Take care, soldier, and greet your family for me.” *** We landed at Travis Air Force Base after our long flight and were bused to the nearby San Francisco for our flights to Minneapolis and San Antonio, I’d met my wife in Hawaii, mid-tour, but hadn’t seen the kids in a year. How had they changed? Would my younger daughter, who had only been a little over a year old when I left, even remember me?

I bid farewell to Ray as he was headed to San Antonio, where Bobbie lived, and I headed to the gate for my direct flight to Minneapolis. It’s always hard to say farewell to longtime friends, but I knew we have a chance to see each other again on another assignment. One of the nice things about the Army.

Actually, sooner than I thought, as Ray was headed for an assignment in the Pentagon.

When I arrived in Minneapolis, the family had gathered with posters and confetti. A wonderful homecoming. Lots of hugs and kisses, just what I wanted. I remained a little uneasy as military 51

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returnees from Vietnam had been accosted by protesters at many different airports.

Thankfully, no protestors. I couldn’t believe how much my children had changed. I’d left my oldest daughter when she was six and in first grade and here stood a lovely mature young woman. I hugged her and hugged her.

My son was four when I left and here stood an attractive young man. Sadly, he had not been able to talk with me on the phone because he had to say “over” so many times in the middle of the call, but he remembered me and ran to meet me. I was swamped with love.

I worried the most about my youngest daughter. We had been very close when I left and she stood back a little when I first arrived.

Then she saw her brother and sister run over and she did, too. Oh, what a wonderful time. I said a prayer of thanks for my safe return and managed to brush tears from my eyes.

I had heard a lot about problems between couples. My wife had been making all the decisions and running the household for a year. Here I stood with probably another view of doing some things. But so far, all seemed to be fine. It was wonderful to be home.

The drive back to our house was fun and it seemed we all talked and laughed at once. Just how I wanted it.

Over the next few days, we talked about returning to Colorado, a place we had thoroughly enjoyed during our first tour at Fort Carson seven years before. My wife had already begun the search for a realtor and had been searching for information on schools.

It was great to be back with my family after a year’s separation. It took time and discussion, but we gradually began to get reacquainted. I had been told returning home after a year of separation could be complex and confusing, and I needed to proceed carefully, particularly with the kids.

They asked a lot of questions about Vietnam. I had to screen some of the things I told them. I did tell them about my job and some of the people I worked with.

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Also, they were interested in where I had been on my travels around the command. We got a map of Vietnam and I showed them each of the places I had been. A beautiful country, I told them, but sadly Vietnam had been torn apart by the war.

They also wanted to talk about Colorado. Would they have friends? What about schools? What were they like? These were the things they were interested in. I told them about the beautiful mountains, streams, terrific hiking opportunities.

The three of them had spent a year here in Minneapolis with both sets of grandparents. They would be leaving everything they knew again and I recognized it could be tough. New friends, new schools, new home, a complete change to everything they loved.

This is one of the major challenges military families have to deal with. Assignments change every three to four years and the family will be moved around with the sponsor. Kids need special help to deal with all of these moves.

Then it happened. Two weeks into my leave, I received a call from my assignment officer who gave me all the hype about career enhancing opportunities in the Pentagon.

“Don,” he began, “we need you here to work on all of the changes in our force structure. It’s some of what you did in Vietnam and you’re exactly the right guy for the job.”

I knew there was a lot of B.S. in his words, but I had done force structure planning in Vietnam. “To be honest, it’s a little late in the game,” I told him. “We’ve been planning on Colorado. My wife has talked to realtors. She’s been making plans for schools for our kids.”

“This whole force structure thing has hit us like a bombshell,” he said. “It’s really crazy and we need your help. You’ll be hearing about RIF’s, and that may be all you’ll be hearing about from now on.”

“RIF’s?” I asked. “Are you talking about the Reduction in Force thing I’ve been talking about with some of my friends?”

“You got it. You’re the right guy to plug into the program.

You’ll jump in right away and that’s what we need. And did I say, this is a very ‘career enhancing’ assignment?”

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I could tell the B.S. was really starting to fly. “I wondered when you’d get to that. You’ll be telling me all of the big guns who work in the Pentagon will be watching my performance and if I do well, it will lead to promotions and all the good stuff. Right?”

He laughed. “We’re there. And I’m up against it. I need to know your answer by tomorrow.”

“Oh, boy, my wife isn’t going to be excited about this. Let me talk to her and I’ll call you back in the morning.”

“And for crap’s sake, don’t keep me waiting.”

I was ready to answer when I realized he’d hung up. Well, it probably would be, as he said, a ‘career enhancing’ assignment.

He obviously had been marketing assignments to the Pentagon for a while and by the time he finished his pitch, I didn’t see how I could turn it down. I needed time to discuss it with my family before I could call him back.

I hung up the phone and walked into the family room. Well, here goes.

Everyone looked up and my wife asked, “Who was that?”

“The Pentagon calling. They want us to come to Washington D.C. instead of going to Colorado.”

My wife looked at me, eyes wide. “What?”

I told her what the assignment officer had said. “I do think it’s a great assignment. Always good to be close to the flagpole.”

“But, isn’t Washington expensive?”

I nodded, then chuckled. “Yep, but we’ve got plenty of time to think about it. I don’t need to let him know until first thing in the morning.”

There was little doubt in my mind I should be delighted and accept the assignment. My boss in Vietnam had told me, “If a tree falls in a forest and there isn’t anyone around, is there any noise?” His point — if you do well and there’s no one to see it, then how much is it going to count on your record?

The Pentagon is where many of the senior officers are located.

I would meet and work with the big guys, become known, probably right for me at this point in my career.

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I called around and checked with some of my friends. My new job was a plum assignment and not one to be turned down lightly.

My wife and I talked late into the night and we finally agreed I should call my assignment officer back and tell him I’d be proud to accept the assignment. That certainly wasn’t quite the truth, but I didn’t know a better way to say it.

After I talked to my assignment officer, things got really crazy.

We had been sorting out the assignment in Colorado and now needed to cancel all of the work we’d been doing and recalibrate.

Fortunately, we had friends who had lived and worked in D.C., plus those who were there now. So I called in a few chips and touched base with them to gather information on where to search for a house, schools, and other key things.

We did figure we should buy rather than rent. That idea seemed to make sense as most assignments in the Washington area were three years. It seemed a shame to rent for three years.

We spent the next two weeks organizing, then reorganizing, packing, then repacking.

We wanted to leave time to get organized once we arrived in Washington, so we left a week early and made reservations at the Andrew’s Air Force Base guest house and reached out to the next phase of our lives.

Luckily the kids were excited about going to Washington. We talked about all of the fun things to do and see.

My wife wasn’t quite as excited, but agreed it was a move we should probably make.

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9 February 23, 1972 After spending a long three days on the freeways between Minneapolis and D.C., we arrived in the Nation’s Capital, completely overwhelmed by the traffic on the Interstate 495 beltway around the city, as well as the general traffic rush all around us.

Fortunately, the winter gods were on our side and the weather for our drive was cold, but no snow and no ice. We managed to work our way around the beltway to Andrews Air Force Base on the southeast side of the city and checked in to our guesthouse.

After we unpacked and got organized, we drove around the city to find where different things were located. It was apparent we would need one realtor from the Virginia area and one from Maryland.

I was assigned to the Personnel Directorate with a reporting date of March fifth and advised I would be working on the Reduction in Force (RIF) program.

This gave us time to begin the search for a house. We were fortunate that friends from our tour in Germany were assigned to the Pentagon. They agreed to watch our children for the first two days so we could look at houses.

The first day, we drove into Fort Myer and talked to the staff in base housing. They provided us a list of realtors in the Virginia area as well as northern Maryland.

On day two, we launched our search in Fairfax County, Virginia. As we had heard, the housing market was incredibly 56

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expensive. Houses we could afford were south of the city and would require long-range carpooling. I had expected to carpool, but hopefully not more than thirty minutes a day one way.

Houses in Prince Georges County, Maryland, were less expensive than those we saw in Virginia, but we found taxes on houses were higher in Maryland.

On the third day, I drove into my new office to meet some of the staff. I saw a friend from Vietnam who had only arrived a couple of months earlier.

Based on a tip he provided, we found a house that seemed to fit our needs in Prince Georges County near Rose Croft Raceway, just southeast of Washington.

The neighborhood looked welcoming, a charming cul de sac with a number of military families among our new neighbors so the chances of a carpool group looked promising.

From our review and what we had seen, the schools looked to be excellent. We were able to place our older daughter in second grade and our son in kindergarten. It appeared to be an easy commute into Washington and I found a group of carpool companions.

I’d heard from a number of friends you needed a compatible carpool group, or you could go crazy if one or two of the others weren’t punctual or dependable.

The five of us met and agreed the driver would start at six o’clock and pick up each member at five to ten minute intervals.

We planned for our group to begin the journey into Washington by six-thirty, thereby beating some of the worst of the traffic. It was critical we reach the parking lot by about seven o’clock so we could meet the duty hours, which started at seventhirty.

From what I could figure, the best case would be to arrive at least twenty minutes early. And no one ever wanted to be late to work at the Pentagon.

For the first year, I found the work to be intense, but I enjoyed my carpool and we always managed to arrive at work on time.

We even developed a tradition to stop at Bolling Air Force Base each Friday evening for happy hour unless one of us had 57

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to get home early for an evening activity — which didn’t happen often.

Bolling was the headquarters for the Air Forces District of Washington, but more importantly, it had an impressive officers club. This turned out to be a great way to relax after a long week at work. Sometimes the wives would join us.

Our children settled in and made friends at school and in the neighborhood where we lived. It turned out to be a friendly community with all of us compatible.

Because of the number of military in our community, we had a balanced racial mix, something we appreciated and thought valuable for our children.

Our cul de sac was evenly divided between whites and blacks and everyone got along. We planned to have a block party at least once each month to get to know everyone better.

We rotated the task of planning the block party so each of us had an opportunity at least once every six months. *** In 1974, Prince Georges County, Maryland, became the largest school district in the United States forced to adopt a busing plan. The county, consisting of a large suburban school district east of Washington, D.C., was over eighty percent white in the general population and in the public schools.

In the communities closer to Washington, there was a higher concentration of black residents than in more outlying areas. Through a series of desegregation orders after the Brown decision, the county had a neighborhood-based system of school boundaries.

Against the will of the Prince George’s Board of Education, a federal court ordered the county to develop a school busing plan to be set in place. The transition became more traumatic as the court ordered the plan be implemented with “all due haste.”

A plan for busing met considerable opposition from both the white and black families in our community. My friend, who was black and lived next door, put it best. “You know, I moved out 58

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of Washington D.C. to Prince Georges County to have a better school system for my three boys. And now this happens.”

He started to pace. “My family is right back where we were before we moved. They’ll be going to school back in the old neighborhood. I can’t believe this is happening. It’s not fair.”

Our community argued that we were naturally integrated, exactly the goal the court hoped to obtain, and why change what was already working in our community.

To make matters worse, the court decision occurred during the middle of the school term and students, except those in their senior year in high school, would be transferred to different schools to achieve racial balance.

Many high school sports teams’ seasons and other typical school activities would be disrupted because of the immediate transfers.

We argued it would be difficult for families disrupted by changes in their daily lives to get their children ready for different schools and receive them after school.

Transportation logistics for extracurricular activities and parental participation in activities such as volunteer work in the schools and PTA meetings would all require major changes in routine, and to make it worse, this would happen at mid-year.

A group of us met to develop a strategy. We agreed we would work out a schedule to attend all of the Board of Education meetings and any court hearings about the decision. We would argue our points. We would not let this get away from us.

After several weeks of hard work, chasing to meetings, writing memos, and meeting with politicians, we hoped we were making headway.

We figured our community should be exempted because our ratio of white to black families met the criteria the courts were trying to accomplish.

Then it happened.

My friend next door called. “Did you hear the news?”

“No,” I replied. “What’s up?”

“We’ve been exempted from busing. Our school district has already done what they wanted us to do.”

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When the word got around, our community celebrated and the result brought all of us much closer together.

We told the court, our argument was in no way meant to minimize the racial challenges in the area around our school district.

My next door neighbor was black and his wife white. Their boys were close in age to our children, so all the kids played together.

Once each month, Bernie and I took our wives out to dinner.

We alternated selecting restaurants. I chose a restaurant in rural Virginia that had a reputation for excellent food.

When we arrived, the hostess provided us menus and seated us, but no one came to our table to take our drink orders.

After a reasonable period of time, I complained to the hostess about their lack of timeliness. Finally, a black busboy walked over to our table, a small tablet in his shaking hand.

“What do you want to eat?” He asked.

I was so angry and frustrated and about ready to blow my cool.

Bernie put his hand on my arm. “Don’t do it. Let’s just leave.

You won’t make a difference here. We just need to get out of here.”

As we walked out, I apologized to Bernie and Kay for my selection of restaurants. “I should have known better.”

Bernie looked at me. “Welcome to my world.”

I nodded. What happened was an eye-opener to me on the challenges our black friends encountered. This happened to me one evening. To Bernie, it was just another example of daily life.

The memory of what happened to us that night has never left me. I can still see the young busboy with the small tablet in his shaking hand. I will never forget my lesson and what it must have meant to my friend.

And Bernie was so gracious about it. I had made the mistake, and since I was his friend, he didn’t mention it again. ***

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From the first day I arrived in my new office, I realized the complexity of the job I faced. The military had shrunk in size following almost every war in our history.

The current army strength, for example, had roughly halved from the almost 1.6 million soldiers at the peak of the Vietnam War in 1968 to an authorization of about 800,000 soldiers in 1973. My job would be to help determine who would be cut and who would be retained based on numbers and performance.

Unfortunately, it appeared there would have to be far more emphasis on numbers than performance. This meant we could be boarding out quality officers because of space limitations. The impact on the officer corps would have terrible implications for years to come from the loss of those well-trained officers.

What further complicated the drawdown had to be the task of maintaining a balance within career groups and ranks.

For example, for every colonel there should normally be three lieutenant colonels, for every lieutenant colonel, two majors, for every major, four captains, and so forth.

To maintain officer morale, the Army needed to provide a steady state promotion stream opportunity for all officers. Sadly, after the huge reduction in end-strength authorization the Army went through in 1972/73, promotions would be frozen for years.

I felt so sorry for those who got caught in one of those cycles.

One of my friends appeared to be a fast-track captain for promotion, having served two tours in Vietnam, then ordered to Germany. He arrived in Europe and was told he would likely be promoted to major and assigned to the Command and General Staff College upon his return to the states.

The following year, the Reduction in Force (RIF) hit. About a month after he arrived in Europe, the Army informed him he would be released from active duty within ninety days and there was nothing I could do to help.

Sadly, controversies like this would present a drag on morale for the foreseeable future.

We were facing a numbers game for which many deserving soldiers, who had given so much by serving one or even more tours in Vietnam, were boarded out of the service with little 61

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notice and little opportunity or time to plan for their future.

The end of the Vietnam War in January 1973 left the Army a much-weakened institution. Public trust in the military resulted at a low point, with many blaming the military for the war as much as they blamed the civilian policymakers whose orders the military carried out.

Many of the soldiers who returned from Vietnam faced a hostile or, at best, an indifferent public reception which hurt their opportunities to find quality employment in the civilian world.

A number of soldiers had become drug addicts in Vietnam, where the supply of heroin was cheap and plentiful. Discipline, especially in the base camps, had begun breaking down in many units toward the end of the war as it became apparent the decision-makers were only interested in leaving Vietnam.

A common saying of the time was, “I don’t want to be the last soldier to die in Vietnam, a war no one supported or even seemed to care about.”

To add to the challenges we faced, President Nixon directed the Department of Defense to eliminate the draft and create an all-volunteer force by the end of June 1973.

This made my work crazy. On the one hand, we were cutting officers to bring end strength in balance with authorizations; on the other, we were trying to encourage new soldiers to sign up and enlist. Bitterness streamed from those officers who had given so much and now they apparently would be thrown out onto the streets without much warning.

With the formal establishment of the all-volunteer Army in 1973, the need to make the Army an effective military force rested first and foremost on the ability to recruit quality soldiers.

At first, it seemed an impossible task. Month after month in 1973, the Army, like many of its sister services, failed to meet recruiting quotas. Recruiters were initially able to fill only about seventy percent of their quotas for enlisting first-term male soldiers.

Attempts to hold the line for high-quality recruits, those with high school diplomas, seemed doomed to failure. Some critics, including members of Congress, claimed the army leadership 62

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focused secretly on subverting the Modern Volunteer Army Program and returning to the “safe” days of the unlimited manpower of the draft. The pressure on my job became even heavier.

Even with the reduction of the authorized army end-strength to 781,000 in 1974, the Army ended the fiscal year 1973, the last year of the draft, under strength by almost 14,000 soldiers.

Then, for the first time, recruiting began to turn the corner in 1974. Of those recruited, eighty-four percent ranked in the average or above-average mental groups, demonstrating the Army had stayed on the right track.

I didn’t see how things could get any more confusing until I read in the Washington Post that police had arrested burglars in the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. Not normally important news until evidence began to link the break-in to President Nixon’s re-election campaign.

As Washington Post reporters Bernstein and Woodward began to unscramble what had really happened, they discovered the scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration’s continuous attempts to cover up its involvement in the June break-in.

It seemed every morning when I went to the front door and picked up the Washington Post, I would see more and more disturbing news.

While we tried to complete the Reduction in Forces program and move forward with the All Volunteer Army concept, many on the pentagon staff worried about the president and what he might do to protect his presidency.

The staff had to consider the possibility the president might use the military to either take over the government or perhaps push the country toward another war with the hope of turning the public’s focus away from the Watergate issues.

It seemed Hollywood almost anticipated the news as a new movie called “Wag the Dog” came out with the exact same plotline. A president caught in a scandal tried to move the country into war to change the headlines. This caused a major

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reaction in the Pentagon and put the military on alert in case the president would try something.

While all of this news was unfolding in the late summer of 1974, I was delighted to find out I was on orders to the Army Command and General Staff College in Leavenworth, Kansas, with a reporting date of August 1975.

Not only would it be wonderful to leave the pressure cooker of the Pentagon, but also I’d have an opportunity to study more long-term strategic and political issues.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but this move would be the beginning of six moves in six years.

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10 Arlington, VA, October 1983 After my workout at the POAC (Pentagon Officers Athletic Center) and a jog, I ventured into the central courtyard and ate my salad, enjoying the cool October day and taking a short break from the stress and hustle in my office.

It had been four months since my diagnosis and two months since I started treatments. I had my monthly check-up later that afternoon.

Hopefully, the docs wouldn’t find any new spots of cancer in their screens. I’d been exercising each day, eating healthy meals, and everything else I could think of to regain my health.

I enjoyed the run from the POAC, across the bridge, around the Reflecting Pool and the Washington Monument, then back to the POAC. On some days, Elaine drove over to the Pentagon and joined me as a break from her studies and we’d run together. We enjoyed the ten km runs on the weekends and even talked about running the Marine Corp marathon in November.

On the way back from lunch, I wandered by my old office where I had gamely tried to balance numbers and quality during the RIF (Reduction in Force) work I’d done back in the 1972-74 time frame.

I remembered the excitement when I discovered I’d been selected for a year-long study at the Command and General Staff College back in the spring of 1975. Had it really been almost eight years ago?

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Thinking back, the experience was everything I’d hoped it would be. The program was designed to teach tactical or basic battlefield issue to military officers.

First and foremost, it gave me a chance to relax a little and focus on long-term issues. Also, I had an opportunity to meet officers from other countries and get to know those officers and their families. Two of my favorites were a major from Australia and a colonel from Korea.

I also was able to spend more time with my family — coaching my son’s soccer and baseball teams and helping with my daughter’s girl scout troop activities.

In the spring, I was notified I would be heading west to Fort Ord, California, where I was assigned as a battalion executive officer in the Seventh Infantry Division.

This was the assignment I had hoped for. Although I knew it would be another boiler room job with lots of stress, it was definitely what the assignment officers called a ‘career enhancing’ assignment as long as you did well in a job with this amount of responsibility.

So after the graduation ceremony and many teary farewells, we bid farewell to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and headed west for our second move in a year. *** We arrived at Fort Ord in late June 1976, a beautiful site located near Monterey Bay on the Pacific Ocean coast in northern California.

Our first order of business was a search for a house. Since Monterey is a tourist site and a high-cost area, the staff at base housing suggested we consider looking in Salinas, which is located just a few miles inland from Monterey.

We took her advice and headed for Salinas. Known as the “Salad Bowl of the World” for its large, vibrant agriculture industry, Salinas is also the hometown of writer and Nobel laureate John Steinbeck who set many of his stories in the Salinas Valley and Monterey.

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With a reference from the lady at base housing, we found a realtor who, after only one day, found us a house with all the things we needed for our family and actually within our price range. Best of all, it was only a couple of blocks from the elementary school.

One of the extras we discovered about Salinas was after each quarterly harvest of vegetables in the plots right across the street from our house; we were able to pick all of the vegetables we could use. Not only did this provide for a balanced diet, it also helped with our budget, something we sorely needed.

The Seventh Infantry Division was a light infantry division, the first U.S. division specially designed as a two brigade division.

Most other divisions were structured with three brigades.

This provided me an opportunity to work closely with members of the reserve components. For all of our maneuvers, reserve units joined us during their training cycles which enabled all of us to better appreciate the capabilities of each group.

I thoroughly enjoyed my tour at Fort Ord. However, as the year went on, two significant problems developed.

First, I began to notice problems with my skin. I went to see the dermatologist and he diagnosed me with parapsoriasis, a disease that can be caused by T-cell–predominant infiltrates in the skin.

He proposed light treatment which I started. It turned out my move to Fort Lewis that Spring interfered and I never finished it.

Later I would wish I had kept it up, but I have no idea if it would have made a difference or not.

Second, I encountered what so many other members of the military found — a divorce.

I’m sure the separation during my tour in Vietnam made our continuing relationship more difficult. Finally, we realized it wasn’t going to work and my wife planned a move to Iowa to be closer to family.

In the spring of 1977, the promotion board selected me for promotion to lieutenant colonel. I was happy to find out the promotion was “below the zone,” which meant I was selected ahead of many of my peers.

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With my promotion, I was transferred to Fort Lewis, Washington, to become a battalion commander with the 9th Infantry Division — my third move in three years.

My ex-wife and I worked hard to develop a partnership where our children were able to spend time with each of us. The children lived with their mother during the school year in Iowa, then spent their various vacation times with me.

Not a completely satisfactory answer, but probably the best one we could work out with all of my moves.

I loved it when one of my children arrived for a visit. Saying goodbye again, however, was always one of the hardest things I had to do.

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11 December 1979 Being a battalion commander at Fort Lewis was a learning experience for me. As the commander, you have two missions.

The first is accomplishing the mission assigned to your unit. For me, it was a training mission with the proviso the unit must be prepared to deploy on an assigned schedule.

One of my companies had to be prepared to deploy within 72 hours. The rest of the battalion would deploy over a longer time schedule, depending on the situation.

But the second is the mission which kept me busiest while we were in garrison. And that mission is to take care of the soldiers entrusted to you.

As a commander, you have to motivate your soldiers, rewarding those who do well and punishing those who do not.

And as a commander, you have the tools to accomplish both of these responsibilities.

First, you have the power to promote junior enlisted soldiers and recommend them for schools. Also, commanders are the ones who recommend more senior soldiers for various schools and promotion.

The only way you can accomplish this mission is to know all of your soldiers and treat them fairly. Plus, your soldiers must believe you are treating them all fairly — no favorites.

Whenever I hear of units not doing well and soldiers complaining, I believe the blame may lay — at least initially— with the commander.

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I was fortunate to have a tremendous division commander. I didn’t have to fear he would jump my case for a simple mistake.

He said to me, “It’s okay to make a mistake, just don’t make the same mistake twice.”

When I was at Fort Lewis, the only battalion commander my boss relieved was when he found out some of the soldiers and their families in his command lived in their cars off post and the battalion commander had done nothing about it. He was relieved on the spot.

The message to take care of your people continued to resonate with me.

One day I received the exciting news I had been selected to attend the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, beginning the following August.

While the Command and General Staff College teach tactical issues or basic battlefield strategy, the Army War College teaches the more strategic, political, and other far-reaching international issues.

The college acts as a “think factory” for commanders and civilian leaders facing challenges at the strategic level worldwide.

Many of the student officers in the class routinely engage in debates on the use of ground forces in achieving national security objectives.

I knew that roughly one-third of War College graduates went on to become general officers. While I didn’t think I was a top candidate, one never knows what the future might hold.

I signed into the college in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, at the end of July 1980 and began getting ready for classes. I knew a number of friends from other assignments who would attend, and in many cases, it was like “Old Home Week.”

We had a total of ninety-five international fellows - officers from countries we want to partner with— in our class, enough so that each seminar had at least one international fellow.

The fellows and their families arrived at the war college two weeks early so they could become acclimated to not only the school and campus, but Carlisle and the school system for their children.

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One of the best workshops I attended was the one on the Middle East with a focus on the Palestinian problems.

This had been an ongoing issue for the U.S. as our leaders have tried several times to mediate peace in the Middle East.

Most of us realized that without a solution in this area, it would be doubtful there could be a lasting peace in the area.

Three of our International Fellows — an Israeli brigadier general, an Egyptian major general, and a Saudi Colonel — attended the workshop.

The Israeli was comfortable being with the Egyptian and the Egyptian with the Saudi, but the Saudi would not acknowledge the Israeli, something unusual in war college history. International fellows normally set aside their personal frustrations for the period of the course.

I was interested to watch the interaction between the three men and their discussions. The Saudi never directly addressed the Israeli and always referred to Israel as “so-called Israel.” By the end of the seminar, I felt I had a deeper understanding of the issues and how hard it would be to find a solution.

Individually, I had a chance to spend time with all of the International Fellows and enjoyed getting to know them and their families. *** I had been lonely many evenings and weekends since my wife and I had divorced and the kids lived in Iowa. It was wonderful when they came to visit during their holidays, but it always seemed too soon when they had to leave. And all the moves made it more difficult to quickly make friends.

This, however, was about to change, although I didn’t realize it at the time. At the end of the first month, I spotted an ad for a Parents Without Partners dance at the local VFW. This is an organization I had been involved with, beginning with my tour at Fort Lewis. It wasn’t the same as having a fulltime partner, but it did provide people to do things with.

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When I reached the VFW Hall, I ordered a beer and did some people watching. I spotted a lovely woman on the dance floor and I asked her to dance.

Elaine was an interesting person and a great dancer. I invited her to join me for an early breakfast and we enjoyed each other.

She told me she liked playing tennis, so I invited her to join me the following Monday afternoon for a game at the War College. It turned out she was an excellent tennis player and we had a number of challenging games over the next few weeks.

I’m sure you can see where this is going. Over the next eight months, we kept dating and developed a bond.

In the spring of 1981, I received orders to return to the Pentagon for my second tour with a reporting date of the following June, my sixth move in six years.

When I left Carlisle to travel to the Pentagon, I kept returning to Pennsylvania to visit Elaine. Gradually our relationship grew and our families began to get better acquainted. The blending of our families had begun.

She loved living in the country, and a move to Washington D.C. was not on the top of her list. It took a number of months, but I finally convinced her to marry me and move to Washington.

Elaine had one daughter who was in the ninth grade at the local elementary school in the small town of Newport. It would be a huge change for Jessica to move in midyear, but she agreed.

We got married in January 1982. It turned out our wedding date was in the middle of a blinding snowstorm. However, we managed the elements and put together a move to Washington.

We rented a house in Arlington, only a few miles from the Pentagon. Elaine was enrolled in law school at American University. Law school is a difficult program, so the studying and coursework kept her busy.

Jessica enrolled in Washington Lee High School, which turned out to be a challenging school for her.

My two daughters and one son still lived in Iowa. They came to visit over vacations and holidays and gradually everyone got to know each other. There were a few bumps in getting everyone together, but the relationship grew between our blended families, for which I was grateful.

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Part II

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12 July 1985, Washington, D.C. By this time, you may realize we are back where our story opened — Washington, D.C. I’m working at the Pentagon, and the date is July 1985. I’m forty-five years old and continue eating a healthy diet and exercising, but according to the doctors’ best estimates, I will die within four years from my lymphoma.

I’ve completed my first two years of applying the nitrogen mustard to my skin and visit the National Cancer Institute once each month to review my progress with the doctors as well as provide input to the study protocol. The doctors have asked me to continue with the nitrogen mustard treatment once each week, which while time-consuming, is much easier than every day.

Applying the nitrogen mustard has made me much more careful when I’m in the sun, but I’m fortunate that’s it hasn’t interfered with my duties as an army officer and my work in the Pentagon. At least not so far.

Since my graduation from the Army War College in 1981, and our marriage in January 1982, I’ve worked as an assistant executive officer to a three-star general in the Pentagon. My duties are controlling the paper flow in and out of the office.

I’m becoming an expert on formats and what’s needed for what sort of paper — information paper, army regulation, study, personal information. I have a terrific administrative assistant who works for me.

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properly coordinated. The Pentagon is a huge organization and all papers signed by a general must be properly coordinated.

Duty hours are hectic. As they say, “We work a half-day — six in the morning to six at night,” so when you add in commute time back and forth to work, it doesn’t leave much time for family activities during the week.

Elaine is in her last year of law school, so I don’t see her often during the week. She needs to spend much of her time upstairs in our study, hitting the books.

Jessica manages to stay busy between schoolwork and athletics. We try and set aside time on the weekend to do things together.

We have a lot of fun when my two daughters and son are able to visit during school vacations and holidays. They usually visit one at a time, so we get to spend time with each one and don’t have to share them during their trips.

On one trip, we went fishing with my son. Another time we tried camping. Fortunately, we all get along most of the time.

Some bumps, but I’m told that’s the case with blended families. *** Unfortunately, during my free time, I often found myself thinking about my future, or lack of future. As a result, I made a concerted effort to stay busy.

I began to think it might be helpful if I could find another activity I enjoyed. This led me to start looking around for a place where I could volunteer.

One afternoon after work, I spotted an ad in the paper spelling out the Hospice of Northern Virginia needed volunteers. I’m told by friends this is an organization that provides treatment and assistance to many. Also, it crossed my mind I may need them at some point down the road.

I try not to think about being terminal, but it’s always there.

Particularly around two o’clock in the morning when I wake up and lay there wondering why did this happen to me? My life

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was going along great, but the six-year death sentence is always lurking in the background.

Hospice is a large organization and I’m told it is always searching for volunteers. I figured why not check it out.

New volunteers are required to attend a training program, so I call their office and set up a time to attend my first session.

When I arrive, I’m met by a tall, slender man named Henry. I introduced myself to the six other volunteers.

“Welcome, everyone,” Henry says. “We are delighted you are here and appreciate your help. First of all, let me share there are two types of volunteers — treatment volunteers and bereavement volunteers.”

We nod and wait for him to continue.

“Our goal is to provide a better quality of life and relief from damaging symptoms for our patients. We address a person’s physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual needs.”

He glances around at the group. “Hospice care teams coordinate the majority of care for a patient and communicate on a constant basis with the patient’s medical care team.”

“What about a bereavement volunteer?” I asked. “Can you tell me what they do?”

“We provide bereavement services to the grieving party for about a year after the patient’s death. These can be very difficult times for those left behind. Dates which are particularly painful to remember include birthdays, wedding, anniversaries, Christmas, and other special religious holidays.”

As I listened to Henry, I became more and more impressed and figured I wanted to be a bereavement volunteer.

When he asked for questions, I raised my hand. “I realize as a bereavement volunteer I’d need to be available on the key dates you mentioned to help the person get through difficult times. But this could be a challenge with my crazy schedule at the Pentagon.”

“Don, all we can expect is for you to do your best,” Henry replied. “We know schedules can be tight and,” he smiled, “even being an army colonel, you can still only be in one place at a time.”

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I laughed. “Okay, if there’s space, sign me up.”

As I thought about it, I also realized I might need to take the remaining family member to the grocery store and other routine trips whenever I could.

I’m sure what we would consider normal trips could seem overwhelming to the one left behind. I thought this might be a little easier for my schedule as running errands like grocery shopping are normally done on the weekends and don’t need to be done at a precise time.

Once I started my volunteer time, I found I enjoyed helping the person I had been assigned and felt good about doing it. Better yet, it helped me forget, at least for a while, my own problems, which was important for my own mental health. *** About six months after I started as a bereavement volunteer, I heard of a new program the hospice staff planned to sponsor.

They had contracted with an art therapist to help patients with their problems and looked for a volunteer to assist the therapist. I expressed my interest, and the staff member told me they had hoped I would volunteer.

It turned out the therapist would be working with two groups.

One group would consist of teenagers, the other adults.

I asked if I could help with the teenage group. With my three daughters and son all in their teens, I felt closer to the group.

Thankfully, the art therapist agreed.

One case has stayed particularly close to my heart over time.

It concerned two seventeen-year-old twins who had lost their dad at only forty-four years old, with little warning.

Hospice contacted the art therapist for her assistance as the twins had not spoken about their dad since his death, quite a challenge for the therapist. I was anxious to see how she would address it.

I watched her encourage each twin to draw a picture of their feelings about their dad and what had happened to him so rapidly.

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Both drew a picture of what looked like a rectangle with a door in it. A man stood in the doorway.

The therapist asked the twins what these drawings meant, but neither said a word. The therapist didn’t push. She and I talked about the pictures separately and what it might mean. The twins remained muted, each crying softly during our session.

This went on for about three weeks, each of us working hard to build trust with the twins. Finally, one of the two said a few words, then went quiet. We couldn’t understand what she said and, more importantly, what she had meant.

Trying to seize on the opening, I asked, “What did your dad do?”

Sandy looked up at me, tears running down her cheek. “He was the CEO of a major corporation.”

I wasn’t sure if I should continue, but the therapist nodded.

“I understood he was a young man who died after such a short illness.”

Her sister, Ann, said, “We only had a little time with him, maybe a month after his diagnosis. He was a wonderful man and we hardly had a chance to say goodbye. It went so fast. So unfair.”

Our session ended without further talk between any of us.

I couldn’t believe how awful it must have been for those two—their dad, so young and dying so rapidly. I’ll never forget the next week’s session.

When I asked what the box meant, Sandy blurted out, “The elevator.”

The therapist began to ask about the shape of the elevator, color, decorations, and other important things about it.

Not wanting to get into why they wouldn’t talk, I asked, “Who’s the man inside the elevator?”

My questions seemed to unblock Sandy and she told us the whole terrible story.

“The hospital scheduled Dad for what they thought would be eight hours of surgery after he had been admitted about a week earlier.”

This opened up Ann. “We waited downstairs in a special lobby the whole awful time. It turned out to be nearly ten hours.

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We held hands with our mother and prayed for dad to make it through the surgery.”

She stopped and dissolved into tears.

Sandy began to speak almost as if in a trance. Her voice stayed low and she spoke slowly. “We heard the chime of the elevator. I’ll never forget that chime sound. The door opened and the doctor stood there. His mask was down around his neck.”

The therapist leaned forward, hands on her knees. “What happened next?

“All three of us jumped up and ran over to the doctor, talking, calling, almost yelling, asking what had happened? How is he?”

Then Sandy bent over, crying.

Ann blurted out, “The bastard wouldn’t even get off the elevator to talk with us. He stood in the elevator, the door banging against his foot as he held it open, and had the nerve to tell us our dad had not survived the surgery. He had died on the table.”

Sandy straightened. “He didn’t leave any time for questions.

Simply told us we could see our dad once more, then he let the door close. Can you imagine that?”

I looked at her, then the therapist, both of us in shock. “No, I can’t.”

It took another two hours as we talked with the twins until they could ramp down their anger.

I’ll never forget an hour later when their mother walked into the front door of the Hospice building. She stared in our direction as the therapist and I talked with the twins. They were animated as they again and again showed their anger at the doctor.

When they looked up and saw their mother, both ran over to give her a hug. I don’t think there was a dry eye anywhere in the studio.

Their mother broke down in sobs as the three hugged each other. The therapist and I walked over to where the three stood.

The twins reached over and gave us both hugs.

I was so happy to see their excitement. Then it dawned on me I had forgotten all about my own health problems. The emotion rained down on me. I discovered by helping those two, I had actually helped myself.

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I stayed in touch with the twins over the next year, delighted to hear of their progress and happiness. I also stayed in touch with the art therapist, impressed with the skill she had shown and the difference she had made in those two young women’s lives.

All in all, working with the therapist for those weeks provided me an excellent lesson in what she did and the help she could provide to others.

More importantly, these were lessons that would help me on my own journey and would be important to help me sort out my feelings and emotions.

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13 Arlington, VA, August 1986 In spite of what friends who knew my status told me, I found it hard to forget about my diagnosis.

So far my most recent tests showed no further signs of cancer in the lymph system or in the blood work, which was a positive sign. The doctors were encouraging, but told me the cancer could still return with little warning, so I needed to continue my efforts.

I still felt fine and when I went to work, most of the time it never crossed my mind. Friends said I should lead my life and not worry about the future. Take care of my health and keep on charging.

While I tried to be positive with others, I still found it difficult to be positive with myself. I kept searching for answers to relieve my mind.

There were many articles I read which involved death and I tended to dwell on them. Probably not the best thing to do, but I couldn’t help it.

I spotted an article in the Washington Post about near-death experiences. It seemed some people who were very ill or who’d had a bad accident and were undergoing surgery had experiences where they could see what was behind the curtain of death yet managed to return to talk about it.

I opened the paper and began to read. People who had a near-death experience, researchers claimed, shared similar characteristics.

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These experiences might include detachment from the body, a feeling of levitation, total serenity, warmth, the experience of absolute dissolution, and the presence of a light. I wanted to read more. I needed to read more.

The explanations for near-death experiences varied from scientific to religious. Scientific research found the experience a phenomenon resulting from what the experts called a “disturbed bodily multisensory integration,” which occurred during lifethreatening events.

The scientific explanation didn’t do much for me. I found the second explanation to be much more comforting. Religious beliefs tended to center around an afterlife, what I needed to read more about.

I’m not a deeply religious person, having grown up in the Lutheran church as a kid in Minneapolis, and during my adult life participating in chapel services while in the military, but not all the time.

However, now I searched for something to help me make sense of what had happened to me. Why, I kept asking?

Researchers identified a number of common elements which defined near-death experiences. One type of experience focused on patients who had died on the operating table during surgery and were then brought back to life by the operating team.

When they awoke, the person described being above the surgeons and watching their efforts to resuscitate them. These patients were able to describe things going on in the operating room, which they should not have been able to see from their position on the table.

I had to ask myself how these patients could describe events going on around them unless they were actually above the table and able to see the surgical staff?

Thoughts like those gave me hope there was something to these near-death experiences, something I should follow up on in more detail.

Many common elements have been reported, although the person’s interpretation of these events often corresponded with the religious or cultural beliefs of the person experiencing it.

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For example, in the United States, where 46% of the population believes in guardian angels, the people being seen will often be identified as angels or deceased loved ones. Hindu people, on the other hand, will often identify them as messengers from the gods of death.

One day at work, I was talking to my secretary about what I’d been reading. She told me a story about her mother on her death bed. All of a sudden, her mother shouted out, “Mom, is that you?

Is that really you?”

At the moment of her death, my friend’s mother saw her mother, who had come to help bring her into an afterlife. That evaluation is what my friend thought it meant. To be honest, I hoped she was right.

These stories were helpful to me and I wanted more information about near-death experiences. Also, I knew I’d better not tell too many of my friends what I was thinking. Very few of the people I worked with knew the full story of my disease and might start worrying about me if I shared too much of what I was researching.

As I continued reading, I discovered near-death experiences are often associated with future changes in personality and outlook on life.

One of the researchers identified a patient’s greater appreciation for life, more compassion for others, less concern for acquiring material wealth, a heightened sense of purpose and self-understanding, elevated spirituality, and a feeling of being more intuitive as characteristics shared by people who returned from such experiences.

I had to agree with some of the above ideas. In my own case, although I had not experienced a near-death, being faced with the possibility of an early death made me more appreciative of life.

It made me try to live each day to the fullest as well as develop greater compassion for others and less concern for acquiring material wealth.

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*** I decided to go to the library and do more research on neardeath experiences. Maybe I could find someone knowledgeable to talk with.

I always held back when it came to talking to others about my ideas. Since I was being cared for at the National Cancer Institute, their patient notes did not go into my regular health record kept at my local dispensary in the Pentagon.

When I arrived at the library, I looked up near-death experiences and found Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was one of the experts on the subject.

As a volunteer at the Hospice of Northern Virginia, I’d heard her name many times, and now I looked forward to reading more about her.

I scanned her collection of inspirational essays in the book, Life after Death. Doctor Kubler-Ross drew on her in-depth research of more than 20,000 people who had near-death experiences, revealing the afterlife as a return to wholeness of spirit.

Ross, a Swiss-American psychiatrist, turned out to be a pioneer in near-death studies and the author of the internationally best-selling book, On Death and Dying.

In her book, she discussed her theory about the five stages of grief and the way many in the world think about the terminally ill. She pioneered hospice-care, palliative-care, and near-death research and was one of the first to bring forward the issues terminally ill individuals face into the public eye.

She described the five stages of grief, the first stage in her theory being denial. These five stages helped to explain people’s feelings whether they were the sick person or dealing with the loss of a loved one.

These stages of grief made a lot of sense to me. I had been dealing with them, although I hadn’t understood these steps were a process I needed to work my way through.

I will have to say for the first few months after my diagnosis, I

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was in complete denial. I certainly had a disease I needed to deal with, but I was healthy. This couldn’t be happening to me.

I ate carefully, watched my weight, and exercised. I certainly had no constant pain I’d heard many who had a terminal disease experienced, for which I felt grateful.

The more I read about her theory, the more sense it made to me. I was living her theory and had begun to experience each of these stages. As I processed the reality of my disease, I also realized I had to survive emotional pain.

The second step in her five stages of grief is anger. Did I ever have anger. The anger seemed to trade-off with denial.

As long I was in denial, I didn’t seem to have a big problem with anger. But as soon as I recognized my health crisis, then the anger came in bursts. And these bursts normally occurred around two o’clock in the morning.

I’d heard people had the most trouble sleeping when they have problems. Sleeping through the night turned out to be a problem for me. I’d normally go to bed around ten o’clock and often fall asleep easily.

Then invariably, I’d wake up about two o’clock and battle in my mind why all this was this happening to me. After I’d admit it was actually happening to me — moving out of denial — I’d get angry.

I found myself running in a continual loop. After a couple of hours denying my status, then I’d get angry all over again. The next day I’d be tired at work because I’d spent the time arguing with myself about my illness.

It took me more time to reach the next stage, bargaining. I’d always assumed I’d live a long and healthy life. At the time of my diagnosis, our children ranged in age from fourteen to eighteen.

Not the time a kid wants to lose his or her dad or the time a dad wants to leave his kids.

I had plans, oh, so many plans. I wanted to watch my children graduate from college, get married, have children of their own.

I wanted to get to know my grandchildren. Retire. Enjoy the product of all our work. Then when you realize you may only

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have a few more years to live, the bargaining begins in earnest. I did not want to leave my family and friends.

My life had been a good life, a productive life, and I didn’t want to leave it. Sometimes at night, I would swear I would do better in the church. I would give more to the poor. I would consider adopting homeless children.

Any of the good things you think you should do turned out to be on the table. It took a while for me to realize I was already doing good things. Helping care for a wonderful family had to be at the top of the list.

The fourth stage of grief is depression. I didn’t find myself depressed, at least not yet. I had read that during the experience of processing grief, there came a time when imaginations calm down and we slowly start to look at the reality of our present situation.

Bargaining no longer feels like a realistic option and we are faced with dealing with what is actually happening.

The last stage of grief is acceptance, but so far not an option for me at least, not yet. I planned to fight to maintain and yes, gain back my health. I tried to live my life in the process of resisting the reality of my situation and wanting to struggle to make it something different.

When I first began to think about grief and death, it was early in my hospice experience. People grieve differently. I knew I may or may not go through each of these stages, or experience each of them in any particular order.

I had no idea where I was headed or how long it would take me to get there. This was all unchartered territory for me, but a journey I needed to take and sadly, some could help me, but this journey was mine alone.

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14 Fall, 1986 The year 1986 to 1987 was an incredibly busy year for me. I was the executive officer for a three-star general, a prestigious position, but intense and full of many stresses.

I would normally start work about five-thirty in the morning as I needed to first get my own work done. Then I could deal with all of the people who started coming into the office for meetings with myself or the two generals in the office.

I couldn’t remember ever leaving for home before seven o’clock in the evening. I loved the job and enjoyed the people I worked with, but I found it demanding to balance my work with the medical appointments I had to make and tests the doctors wanted me to take. All of my commitments took time and were a drain on my day.

I had no idea how much impact the stress resulting from all I attempted to balance would have on me. I realized stress in any form was a bad thing to put yourself through while you’re trying to heal. But I kept trucking along, hoping and yes, sometimes, praying things would work out.

Elaine had done an extensive amount of research on cancer and recommended we should be eating a macrobiotic diet. The diet aimed to avoid the toxins which came from eating dairy products, meats, and oily foods. She hoped this diet would help in my recovery from cancer and I agreed.

The principal foods found in a macrobiotic diet were whole grains, locally grown fresh veggies, seaweed veggies, and beans.

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You can also eat seasonal fruits, nuts, seeds, and white fish two to three times per week. You don’t eat meat, dairy, and most other animal products, certain fruits and veggies, and some common drinks.

Jessica, who lived with us, can testify eating this diet all the time can be pretty tiring. None of the good stuff I loved such as ice cream, cookies, and burgers, but we all hoped this diet could make a difference.

I recognized the following summer my tour at the Pentagon would be up and I would be reassigned. I had a friend who was rotating to Europe to assume command of a major installation. I was proud to find out he wanted me to be his chief of staff.

This was the type of dream assignment I had always wanted, but now it brought a number of challenges.

First of all, our blended family still needed work. It would be difficult to live in Europe and not see our children more than a couple of times during a three-year tour.

Undoubtedly, we would try and bring them over to visit each summer and maybe some of the older ones might want to work in Europe at least during the summer months. But these thoughts were only possibilities and not seeing the four of them on a regular basis would not only be hard on us, but make it more difficult to keep blending our family.

The second concern had to be regular access to the National Cancer Institute. I continued to be involved in the study protocol which called for regular follow-up appointments at least once each month and more frequently when the doctors spotted problems.

This would be difficult to maintain if we lived in Europe.

Reluctantly, I turned down the assignment which posed the death knell for the possibility of any further promotions.

By this time, however, I realized my life had completely changed with the diagnosis and I might as well get used to it. I needed to put health and family first.

What I had wanted earlier in my life wasn’t what I wanted now. Now I wanted to spend as much time as I could with my family and work to get well.

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This discovery jived with everything I had been reading about a near-death experience and a focus on prolonging life. *** One of the other factors in my decision was my volunteer service with the Hospice of Northern Virginia. I found working in the bereavement program to be enjoyable and at times, yes, even fun.

Another factor which kept chipping at me was learning more about near-death experiences. I wanted to talk with people who had actually had one. What was it actually like for them? Would this ever happen to me?

In talking with one of my hospice friends, I discovered a group in Arlington where we lived who had actually gone through a near-death experience. They would meet on a monthly basis as a discussion group to help each other deal with the reality of their experiences.

My friend shared with me members of the group were open to sharing their experiences. I asked for a contact and she provided me with a name and phone number.

I called the contact named Pam and explained my situation.

“I’ve read about near-death experiences and I understand you have gone through such an experience. Would you be willing to talk with me about it?”

“Certainly,” she said. “I understand your concerns and would be happy to share what happened to me.”

We made arrangements to meet at a coffee shop near our home. I arrived a little early. Soon, a young woman limped into the shop.

She saw me and waved. I could tell by her slow movements she had broken a number of bones, I thought in a car accident.

She limped toward me and I stood to pull out a chair for her.

“Can I buy you a cup of coffee and something to eat?”

She sat with a thank you. “Coffee would be great and maybe a muffin.”

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“They have really tasty chocolate chip muffins. Home made.”

She smiled and nodded.

When I returned to the table, she began her story. “I was driving home late one wintery night and it was icy. I tried to be careful and drove slowly, but I lost control of the car on the River Road.”

“Oh, no,” I replied, “by the river itself?”

She nodded and her face tightened up.

I immediately felt bad. “I don’t want to cause you any more stress or pain than you already have known.”

“No, it’s okay.” She took a sip of coffee. “My car went over the curb and slid partway down a hill. Fortunately, it hit a wall which stopped the car from going any further toward the water.”

She took a moment to cut off a bite of muffin. “I’m not sure how long I was out, but when I came to, I couldn’t move. I was so cold. I couldn’t stop shaking, yet I couldn’t move at all.”

“Oh, man, it must have been awful.”

She nodded. “Thankfully, I heard voices and realized someone was trying to pry away the metal to get me out. Oh, hurry, I prayed, please hurry. I shook. I hurt.”

She took another sip of her coffee. “A few minutes later, I could feel myself being lifted out and placed onto a stretcher, then placed into an ambulance.”

They raced to a hospital, where they placed me on a gurney and moved me to the operating room. A doctor gave me something to knock me out.”

Her story had me rooted to my chair. I could see a sparkle coming into her eye as she talked.

“All of sudden, I woke up. I looked around and realized I was floating above my body and looking down at the surgeons and all the others in the operating room.”

She watched me, probably taking my measure to see if I believed her at all.

“I feel pretty silly asking, but I have to. Weren’t you afraid you’d fall?”

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She nodded and took another bite of muffin. Then dabbed her mouth with her napkin. “Good question. The interesting point was, I didn’t fear anything at all. Absolutely no fear.”

She smiled again. “It was like I had a 360-degree peripheral vision of the entire area around me, not only in the room where my body lay, but beyond the room. I felt really creepy. I couldn’t believe it.”

I listened to her with rapt attention. “Go on, please.”

She nodded again. “An incredible feeling swept over me. I realized for the first time all the pain had left me. All the fear had left me. And I felt as though I floated, enveloped in a feeling of love. Absolute unconditional love.”

Her next comment startled me and caught my attention.

“I saw my mother walking, or maybe should I say floating toward me from somewhere. Like on a cloud. I couldn’t tell where. I cried out, ‘Mom, it’s me.’”

“You saw your mother?” I asked, my heartbeat increasing.

Pam nodded. “But, my mother said, ‘Yes, I can see you, but it’s not your time. You must go back.’”

“Go back?” I asked. “Go back where?”

I cried out toward her again. “No, no, it’s so beautiful here.

I feel warm and cared for. I reached out, but she backed away.

With the comment again, ‘You must go back.’”

Pam looked like she might cry. “That’s the last memory I have until I woke up in a hospital room with my husband standing next to the bed.”

My husband reached over and kissed my forehead. “Thank heavens, you’re awake. You had me so worried. I was afraid you would die.”

Before I thought what I was saying, I blurted out, “I wanted to die. I was with my mother and I felt safe and warm.”

My husband looked at me, a puzzled look on his face. “But she’s been dead for three years,” he replied. “That’s impossible.”

I reached up and grabbed his arm. “You must believe me. I saw her and wanted to stay with her.”

Pam put her hand over her mouth. “But then I saw his look and knew I had to stop. How could I tell my husband, the love 91

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of my life, I didn’t want to come back to him. I didn’t want the doctors to save my life. I wanted to die. It was so beautiful.”

I looked at her, concerned what I might say could hurt her. “I’ve read about many who have experienced near-death experiences do not want to return.”

She nodded. “That’s true. Most of my friends wanted to stay where they were. They did not want to return to their loved ones.”

I thought for a moment. “How could you possibly explain the feeling. If it happened to me, how could I explain my feelings to my wife? My kids?”

Pam took another sip of coffee. “There’s no right answer.

My friends and I have agreed everyone has to deal with the experience each in their own way.”

She looked at her watch. “Oh, my, I gotta go as I have another appointment and it takes me a long time to walk anywhere.”

I stood and reached out my hand to help her up. “I understand.

Thank you so much for sharing your incredible experience with me. I really appreciate it.”

She held onto a section of the table as she struggled to stand.

“You’re welcome. What’s so hard for me is when I tell the story, it reminds me of the look on my husband’s face when I said I didn’t want to come back.”

I took her arm to balance her. “I can’t imagine how tough your experience must have been.”

Pam put her hand on the table. “At the time, I didn’t realize my husband had been up for hours, first waiting for the surgery to finish, then for me to wake up. Oh, I felt so badly for a long time and I still do.”

She reached for my arm and we started to walk toward the door. “Has it caused problems for you in your marriage?”

Tears formed in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. “I’ve always regretted telling him I didn’t want to come back to him. I don’t think he has ever forgotten what I said, and I don’t believe he still understands.”

“I have no idea how I would have handled it myself.”

When we reached the door, she turned and said, “An incredible journey, but not one I can tell many people about. To 92

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be honest, I don’t believe most people understand. Some think I’m some sort of nut.”

“I believe you and want to thank you again for sharing. You definitely are not some sort of nut.”

After she left, I sat back down and took a few minutes to finish my coffee. Did I believe her? Really believe her?

I took another sip of coffee. It would feel good to believe her, to think that death was not the black door I feared. But I wasn’t sure what I believed. I still didn’t want to die. I had to beat this death sentence.

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15 June 1987 I was in the midst of completing my assignment in the Pentagon.

Having decided to turn down the assignment to Germany and stay in the States to be with my family and closer to the National Cancer Institute, I was assigned as a deputy commander of a facility at Fort Stewart, Georgia.

Many of my friends who didn’t know my situation had trouble understanding my decision. The job in Europe had to be a real plum. One I had spent a career preparing myself for. But I don’t believe I had any choice. And I certainly did not regret my decision. Priorities had changed for me.

I had never been to Fort Stewart. Elaine and I were both pleased we would only be thirty miles southwest of Savanah, a beautiful city along the Georgia coast.

We both enjoyed the water and decided to take up sea kayaking, figuring coastal Georgia would be a great place to live for the next couple of years. At the same time, we both looked forward to exploring the city of Savanah.

During my next appointment at the National Cancer Institute, I told my doctor I would be leaving Washington in the late summer for an assignment at Fort Stewart.

She smiled. “Lucky you. I grew up on the Georgia coast and would love to go back.”

“This will be the first time for us,” I said. “Do you think this will be okay for me and, particularly, my health?”

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The old concern crept in on me. “It will be almost four years since my original diagnosis and about eighteen months since I finished my last treatment.”

She shook her head. “You seem to be doing well, so I’d suggest you keep doing what you’ve been doing. But I’ve got to emphasize, don’t let up. Don’t you dare let up.”

“We’ve been on a macrobiotic diet and I get plenty of exercise.

I don’t plan to change anything.”

“Good. The one thing I’d caution is to stay away from the sun, particularly between the hours of ten in the morning and three in the afternoon. The nitrogen mustard, while it doesn’t appear to have left permanent scars on your skin, it has.”

“I know and will continue to be careful.”

“You will always be extremely sensitive to the sun and, if you’re not careful, will face not only skin cancer, but even the possibility of melanoma on your skin. You don’t need that.”

I nodded. “I understand.”

“The reason I mention it again is the Georgia sun is hot and can burn you faster than being outside here in D.C. And being in the military, you’ll be out in the field, so you’ll need lots of sunscreen and protection with your clothes.”

“I do understand and will be careful. Now, how often do you want to see me for follow-ups.”

“I’d say for the first year, maybe quarterly, and if things stay the way they are, we can probably change the timing to twice a year. But,” and she pointed her finger at me, “you’ve got to promise me you will take care. It will not take much to cause you to slip back.”

“Okay. I’ll need to check in with the travel office. See what I need to do to use the program.”

“I’m glad you mentioned travel. I’ll put your name into the system. When do you plan to leave?”

“Right now, it looks like early August.”

“Let’s see—another couple of months. I’d like to see you once more before you go so I can run some tests and make sure you’re still doing okay. I don’t want anything to sneak up on us we’re not ready for.”

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She turned toward her computer. “I’m putting your name in the system for Fort Stewart as we speak.”

“Thanks for everything. You’ve helped me get through a pretty tough time.”

She stood to shake hands. “Keep up the good work and the positive attitude. I believe a positive attitude can really help. Often we say your body follows your brain. If you get depressed, it can cause problems for your immune system and I really believe it.”

“That’s a good way to put it. I’ll remember it.”

“I always emphasize to patients it’s important to reduce stress and not let your emotions overwhelm you.”

“Okay. Got it.” But could I really control my emotions? I had to keep working on it. *** When I reached the first floor, I walked into the travel office and saw a tall, slender woman with a name tag, Susan. I introduced myself and gave her the name of my doctor and my protocol.

“Welcome to our program,” Susan said. “The Agent Orange protocol is one of the largest ones here at the present time. As a patient on an NCI treatment protocol, you’ll be under the Special Ambulatory Care Program. You mentioned you’ll be moving to Fort Stewart.”

“That’s right.”

“For patients who live more than 115 miles from the NCI, you’ll qualify for reimbursement for travel as well as a per diem for expenses you encounter during your trip.”

“How exactly does it work?” I asked.

“You will pay for your own lodging, meals, and transportation between the NCI and your hotel. Our research fee is provided to help cover those expenses.”

Susan handed me a sheet of paper. “Here are the instructions.

As soon as you know your appointment here at the NCI, let us know and we will cut travel orders for you.”

I took the paper. “Okay, sounds pretty easy.”

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“You can then send your travel orders to our office in the Clinical Center, let them know your proposed dates, and they will provide you the appropriate tickets.”

I took a sigh of relief. “You seem to be taking good care of us.”

“We want to make it as easy as possible for you when you’re on one of our treatment protocols. You guys have paid a heavy price and we all appreciate it.”

She handed me another sheet of paper. “Now, one more thing. Don’t take a taxi from the airport as we can’t cover those costs. This sheet outlines the schedule for our shuttles to and from National Airport.”

“Sounds easy,” I said. “I’ve got it.”

“It really is,” Susan replied. “Once you work your way through one visit, it flows pretty easily after that. Don’t hesitate to call me if you have any questions.”

“Thanks again.”

As I walked out of her office, I couldn’t help but wonder what the next two years would bring. If the original projection I’d heard of six years was accurate, I would begin to feel the symptoms during my tour at Fort Stewart. They could be wrong, couldn’t they? I had to hope so.

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16 August 1987 I arrived at Fort Stewart in late August 1987. Being a colonel at Fort Stewart turned out to be very different from being a colonel in the Pentagon. There were only six or seven colonels on the whole post, so it felt good to be recognized for a change.

A funny incident happened to me when I first went to central personal to in process. When I walked into the office, I heard someone call attention. Of course, I stepped back and stood at attention, then realized they were calling attention for me. Talk about feeling pretty stupid. Hopefully, not too many of the soldiers saw me.

My new assignment looked to be a challenge and I will have to say it felt good to leave the Pentagon and Washington. We had spent the past six years in D.C. and a change of pace and a new place to live was what we both needed.

The housing market in Hinesville, Georgia, a small town right outside of Fort Stewart, featured homes at a reasonable cost, far better than D.C. We were able to buy a four-bedroom house with a large screened-in porch and turn it into a real home with plenty of room when our kids came to visit, which we hoped would be often.

Once I settled in, I enjoyed my new assignment. It was an interesting job with many responsibilities, but also the authority to go along with those responsibilities.

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The first test case of the travel program happened in October of 1987. I provided the NCI travel office the date of my appointment, and they cut travel orders and tickets for me.

I didn’t tell anyone at Fort Stewart the real reason I was flying back to D.C., but caught a Delta flight at 8:25 from Savannah and arrived in D.C. at noon.

NCI provided a shuttle for me from National Airport to the NCI and I stayed at the hospital. I was due to see a Doctor Mullen at 10:00 the next morning for a lymph angiogram to test if the lymph system was still positive for cancer. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be.

As active-duty military, I was able to spend my night on one of the wards and didn’t need to stay in a hotel on my first trip.

When I arrived and checked in, it surprised me to see the large number of patients on the cancer ward. I watched a group of four women, each of whom had a tube attached to her throat because of throat cancer from smoking.

It amazed me to see all of them still smoking and inhaling through the tube in their neck. I couldn’t believe anyone would be silly enough to do that.

Then I thought they might all have received a death sentence from their cancers and decided to do the best they could. In any event, I had no business judging them as I didn’t want to be judged for my cancer.

The next morning I walked to outpatient surgery for the lymph node biopsy operation. I hoped I could get the result right away, but no luck. I would hear in about four days.

Once the surgeon completed the biopsy, I received a checkup from my doctor, then caught a shuttle to National airport and boarded a Delta flight for my trip back to Savannah.

It would be four stress-filled days before I received the call from the NCI that indeed the nodes had been cancer-free.

What a relief. It appeared I might have a chance to beat the darn diagnosis.

I ended up making the trip back to the National Cancer Institute four times over the next three years. After the first two

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trips, the doctors agreed to stretch out the times to every six months.

They did this with the understanding I would be checked out by the doctors at Fort Stewart each quarter. It got to be a routine trip as I stayed at the Manor Inn in Bethesda each time.

I always held my breath when the doctors at the National Cancer Institute ran their tests on my skin, liver, lungs, lymph nodes, and chest.

I was reaching the time the doctors said I might start to show symptoms. I watched myself carefully and didn’t see anything worrisome.

By this time, it had been five years since my original diagnosis.

Was it possible I could stay clean? Would the diagnosis not prove true? Oh, how I hoped so. *** I departed Fort Stewart in late 1989 and transferred back to Washington. Elaine worked at a large law firm in downtown Washington and Jessica left for college in Pennsylvania.

After six months, we decided it was time to submit my retirement papers so I could spend more time with family and try something different.

I wasn’t sure what I would do in the future, but I knew I needed to spend time on a job search and figure out what I really want to do next. So much depended on my health.

My background in the army wouldn’t be particularly helpful in the business world. Not much call for a guy who was good at writing army regulations in the civilian marketplace.

One day I spotted an advertisement in the Washington Post announcing the Post would be sponsoring a travel writing symposium.

I mentioned the idea to Elaine, “Hey, we like to travel. Why not get paid for it?”

“Good idea,” she replied, “how long a course is it?”

“Twice a week for six weeks, beginning the first of next month.”

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“You’d better get going and register before they fill the class.”

I registered and was glad I did. The Washington Post travel editor, along with two of her key reporters, taught the course. They all were knowledgeable, thorough, and competent instructors.

For the next six weeks I attended the symposium, took careful notes, and read the books they suggested. During the course, I received a wealth of meaningful information, enough so I believed I could begin a career in travel writing.

The editor emphasized as travel writers, we needed to know the difference between a travel brochure and a travel article. A travel brochure simply lists facts about a destination, such as hours of stores, costs, and lists places of interest.

“While facts are important,” the editor said, “a travel article should be designed to bring the destination alive so the reader would want to visit.”

“How do you do that?” One of my classmates asked.

“By uncovering characters who are interesting and can share with the reader things they love about their home. For example,” she said, “rather than parroting a paragraph of history out of a book, why not interview an elderly character and have them say about their home, ‘My grandpa told me …’”

I thought about what she said and understood how important it was to find or develop interesting characters, just like in a novel.

“You want believable and interesting characters,” she said, “realistic dialog, then set the scene through voice and details.

This is what we’ll be talking about over the next six weeks.”

I found her presentations to be fascinating. What I learned was helpful to me as a travel writer, then the same ideas worked for me later as I began to write novels and even memoirs. *** All too soon, it was time for my annual review at the National Cancer Institute. I made my appointment, and Elaine and I drove over to the campus to meet with the doctor.

It surprised me how much I tightened up whenever I entered the building. The memories came flowing back of my first visit 101

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when the doctor had told me I only had six years to live.

I didn’t realize how retiring from the army had made me separate thoughts of NCI from my normal activities. Coming back here again made me shiver and I didn’t like it. I started to worry again—thoughts I hadn’t had for some time.

Then I remembered the two years of applying the nitrogen mustard to my skin, knowing all the damage it would cause and not knowing if it would stop the cancer. The problems of trying to balance work with treatments—the stress of keeping it all straight.

When we reached the front door of the oncology clinic, I took a deep breath, turned the handle, and we walked in.

The receptionist had changed, so when I entered, she asked, “Name, please?”

“Don Helin. I’m here to see Doctor Jordan.”

She ran her finger down her appointment book, then looked up at me. “She’ll be with you in a minute. Please take a seat.”

Instead of Jordan, it turned out to be Joan, the administrative coordinator for protocols, who came out to meet us.

“Hey, Don, welcome back. Why don’t you come in here and let’s talk?”

Elaine and I looked at each other. Puzzled. “Okay.”

Once we were seated, Joan looked up from my health record in her hand. “I imagine you’re wondering why you’re not seeing one of our doctors today.”

I shifted in my chair. “You might say that. We drove here to see Doctor Jordan. She was the doc I saw on my visit last year. I liked her.”

Joan leaned forward. “When I saw you had scheduled an appointment, I let it go through because I wanted to talk with you.”

The trend of this conversation gave me the familiar tightness in my chest and rapid heartbeat. Was she going to tell me one of my tests had shown a significant problem?

After all the past reviews which had shown no more cancer, came the visit I had been dreading since I hadn’t seen the doctor

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for a year. I glanced over at Elaine and she looked back, obviously puzzled and looking worried.

Joan cleared her throat. “I wanted to tell you we have canceled your study protocol.”

I raised my eyes in surprise and began getting frustrated.

“Joan, what are you trying to tell me? Am I back on the chopping block after all this time? Things are going so well with the family.”

She shook her head and smiled. “We did a full battery of tests on you at your last visit. All of those tests turned out negative for any cancer. I believe you need to be followed by a doctor of your choice, particularly for your skin because of the nitrogen mustard.”

I was really puzzled. “Okay, if that’s the case, why are you canceling the study?”

She stood and walked across the room to shake my hand.

“We canceled the protocol because all of the other patients died.

You are our only survivor.”

I saw there looking at her, dumbfounded. “They all died?”

She nodded.

I thought of the friends I had made. We had waited through test results together. Helped each other when we were down.

Shared concerns and helped each other through tough times.

I started to break down. All of these friends dead. It dawned on me I hadn’t been back regularly for a number of months and I hadn’t heard. Didn’t follow up. “All of these good people dead.

And for what?”

Joan let me vent for a few minutes. “Don, listen to me. As you remember, shortly after you first came here, the government was not acknowledging the problems we had with Agent Orange.”

“Oh, do I remember. It made me so angry. They knew the exposure to Agent Orange caused numerous diseases and longterm health problems; meaning, millions of U.S. veterans were negatively impacted.”

She nodded. “We found in our study clear proof the dioxin in Agent Orange could cause type 2 diabetes, heart disease, chloracne, cancer, liver problems, immune system dysfunction and so many other problems.”

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“And they never did a damn thing about it. And all of these good people died.”

“That might have been true before we started our study and other studies around the country which proved them wrong.”

“Yeah, but what the hell did they do?”

“We led the way, Don, and you can be proud to say you helped us. In 1991, Congress passed the Agent Orange Act mandating a list of diseases associated which Agent Orange would be presumed to be service-connected. Veterans eligible for this presumption are veterans who served in Vietnam between January 9, 1962, and May 7, 1975.”

I sat there looking at her. “You mean …?”

“That’s right. Because of what you and so many of your friends did, Agent Orange is now a presumed causal agent for your non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and many other diseases.”

Joan walked over and took both our hands. “You helped us do it. Thank you. Did you say you took a travel writing symposium?”

I nodded.

“Maybe when you get time and progress in your writing, you can tell the story of what we did here, what your friends helped us do.”

I stood and gave Joan a hug. “Thanks so much for all you and the doctors have done. You’ve been great.”

“You’re welcome, Don. And don’t forget about telling our story.”

As I walked out I thought, maybe, maybe I’d do just that.

Maybe one day.

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17 January 1996 Both Elaine and I were glad she decided to keep her house outside of Newport, Pennsylvania, and rent it out for the eighteen years we had been traveling after our marriage.

Initially, we thought we’d sell her house and settle on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay because we enjoyed sea kayaking so much.

However, when we drove back to the Appalachian mountains of Pennsylvania to tell our renters we’d decided to sell the house, we sat out on the front porch of her house, drinking coffee.

After we sat there for a while, we looked at each other, and I said, “This is beautiful. Why are we selling this house? Let’s move here. We can always settle somewhere else if we change our minds.”

Elaine laughed. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

I looked out at the mountains again. “All right, then, let’s tell our renters the plan is we will be staying here. If we decide to settle somewhere else, this will at least give us a place to enjoy while we consider other alternatives.”

She gave me one of her lovely smiles. “Sounds perfect. We’ll give notice, then we can fix up the house and have it painted before we move back in again. Always good to do the painting before we move in all of our furniture.”

“It’s a deal.”

So we marched forward on our new plan and six months later, we began the process of moving back to Pennsylvania.

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From Army Regulations to Novels

When they had moved out, we did all sorts of fixing up and painting, then we moved back.

I’d never lived in the country before and had some apprehensions about it. But, we began to make friends and Elaine renewed her friendships with people she had known before and we got more comfortable all the time.

I got to know the editor of our weekly newspaper, The Perry County Times. Once each quarter he published an insert called “Along the Susquehanna.”

Using the knowledge I had gained from my travel writing workshop, I began writing articles for each issue of the quarterly.

The articles gave me more visibility in the community, which led me to more people who wanted me to do articles about their business and helped me find more interesting subjects to write about.

The Washington Post travel editor had emphasized the importance of gathering and filing clippings of various articles.

These clippings were important in showing editors of other newspapers and magazines my background and help me build a reputation.

As I continued writing for our weekly newspaper, I made a contact with the editor of the Harrisburg Patriot News. Elaine and I did some traveling in Canada and I wrote a travel article for the Patriot News and other nearby newspapers as well as a couple of state-wide magazines.

So, slowly but surely, my travel writing business moved forward.

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Part III

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18 May 2014, 6:30 PM It was a sunny May evening. Elaine and I were at the Harvard Club, a private social club located in Midtown Manhattan at 44th Street West, attending the 2014 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

We’re sitting at a tiny round table with another couple, drinking champagne out of tall glasses and eating small, triangular-shaped tea- sandwiches from trays carried by whitecoated waiters.

I glanced around the ballroom, decorated with posters of various books receiving awards that evening. Each of the tables was full and there were a number of writers standing around the circumference of the rooms waiting for the ceremony to begin.

This would be my second time at this awards celebration, having won an award at the 2013 ceremony. I waved to my publisher who entered the room and talked with one of the presenters. She waved back and smiled.

As I sat there, memories flowed through my mind like a raging river. It had been almost twenty years and I still think of those words Joan said to me, “All of the other patients in the study protocol died. You and your friends helped us prove the danger of Agent Orange for so many others. They now can receive much needed help from the Veterans Administration.”

Who was I supposed to thank for my health? Certainly Elaine for all her support, the doctors at the National Cancer Institute,

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and my family for giving me happy, wonderful memories to make me want to live.

Then I thought about all of the others in the study whom I had gotten to know. The chopper pilot, the nurse, the mechanic.

So many others, and all of them now gone. Gone. The words rang hollow—an absolute heartbreak for me.

After I’d heard the good news from Joan, I had worked hard at my writing, enjoying a career in travel writing for six years. I turned restless and decided to take a shot at writing novels. I had no idea of the many ups and downs I would encounter along the way.

By joining the state-wide writers’ group, Pennwriters, I met a trove of wonderful writers who helped me by teaching classes I could attend and mentoring me. I also joined a thoughtprovoking group that met monthly and provided critiques of my novels.

I spent a number of years sending query letters to agents and editors. Many returned notes thanking me, but said though they thought my manuscript was a good product, it wasn’t quite right for them. Some just sent a simple no.

I had to smile when I remembered the phone call on that fateful day, June 16. 2007. The caller said, “Hi, I’m Kelly Pearson, the acquisition editor for Medallion Press. We received your manuscript for Thy Kingdom Come and would like to publish your book.”

A huge up in my career.

Writers always remember exactly where they were when they received what I like to say is “The Call.” Over the next three years, I learned a powerful message I always share with others who want to publish their books. “Writing is an art, but publishing is a business.”

Medallion Press first told me they wanted to publish my second book the year after Thy Kingdom Come was released, then four months later told me they were canceling their mass-market line. I had lost my publisher. A downer.

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In the meantime, I had joined International Thriller Writers (ITW), a group supportive of new writers. I became a member of their debut author program.

There were seventeen of us — almost like a pledge class.

Each month a different ITW published author provided an online workshop to help us learn the techniques of writing and publishing a book.

I attended the ITW writer’s conference, Thrillerfest, each year. For many years I’d be on a panel to teach others the many different techniques of writing.

On one particular panel, I met a writer who the next year at Pennwriters introduced me to his publisher. My writing life changed when I met the publisher of Headline Books, the publisher of my second novel, Devils Den, and all of my novels since then.

But why was I spared when so many others died? I had absolutely no idea, but I do know the things I’ve been able to do.

At the top of the list is seeing my son, two daughters, and one stepdaughter all graduate from college and go on to be worthwhile and loving citizens. I have met and spent time with all of my wonderful grandchildren. How special they all are.

I’m proud of the program I started with my friend Roger Smith at the Perry County Council of the Arts, A Novel Idea.

We gathered six published authors and, over a number of years, gave classes to help almost seventy writers begin the trek on their writer’s journey.

I snapped out of my memory haze when I heard my name called and Elaine tapped my hand.

She smiled. “You’re up.”

I stood, reached over, and touched my wife’s shoulder, then began walking toward the stage.

When I reached the stage, a flashbulb lit up as someone took a picture of me with my suspense thriller Secret Assault, which won a medal for the Best Suspense Thriller at the 2014 Indie Book Awards.

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I couldn’t completely push back the tears as I thought of that meeting with the doctors at the National Cancer Institute when they told me I only had six years to live.

That day had been almost thirty years before and here I stood, healthy, happy, and surrounded by family and friends.

I renewed my pledge to live up to the honor I’d received and would try my best to help others achieve their goals.

And maybe, just maybe, I’d tell the story of those years with the National Cancer Institute to honor all of the participants and the staff that helped us.

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A MEMOIR OF SERVICE, LOVE, AND HEALING Acknowledgments So many people to thank for the help I received during my tumultuous journey: To my wife, Elaine, whose love served as an anchor to keep me grounded and moving forward during all those traumatic years.

To Lisa, Rick, Kari, and Jessica who were the source of motivation.

To Joan and the staff of the National Cancer Institute who helped me medically and emotionally. I still feel the loss of my fellow protocol patients.

To my publisher, Cathy Teets, who saw value in my memoir.

And finally to all my military friends and those many friends I’ve added during my writer’s journey. You have helped build me into a better person.

Thank you all.

*** Other Titles by Don Helin Thy Kingdom Come Devil’s Den Secret Assault Angel’s Revenge Long Walk Home Roof of the World Missing Voices From The Pandemic

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From Army Regulations to Novels A Writer’s Journey

A Writer’s Journey

Don Helin

Don Helin is the author of six thrillers that draw from his military experience. He writes for TheBurg, a community magazine based in Harrisburg. Don Helin is the multi award-winning author of Devil’s Den, Secret Assault (Indie Book Award), Angel’s Revenge, Long Walk Home, Roof of the World (Indie Book Award), and Missing (Indie Book Award). Don Helin is a Zoom Into Books Author.

From Army Regulations to Novels

In less time than it takes to run a hundred-yard dash, Don Helin’s life is shattered with the stunning news of an illness—triggering numbness, shock, confusion, and despair.

In a fast-paced memoir that reads more like one of his thriller novels, Helin leads us through his journey while weaving into the narrative of his military life the chaos of Vietnam, Watergate, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and political intrigue in the Pentagon.

Finding himself on the threshold of the five steps of grief, he considers the different roads he might have traveled. He enters a National Cancer Institute study protocol designed for Vietnam veterans with health issues caused by Agent Orange. Will the results of this study help the many veterans who suffer from Agent Orange-inflicted diseases?

With the help of his wife and others and his own strength of human spirit, Helin considers changing priorities in his life, which might lead to a different conclusion.

Is it too late to make changes, or must he simply play out the hand he’s been dealt?

From Army Regulations to Novels

Don Helin